 | Reiko Kanazawa Associate Professor - Nagoya University, Graduate School of International Development (GSID) |
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01.03.2022-30.03.2022
Boundaries of Addiction and Disease: WHO’s Unique Position in Postwar International Drug Control and Global Health
Under my overarching intellectual objective to develop a richer understanding of how international drug control and global health have governed addiction, I expect to achieve two concrete outcomes if successful in being awarded a Brocher Residency. First is to draft 48,000 words of a book with six chapters on the history of post-war governance over drug dependence. This will frame the story of post-war international drug control in a broader and more multi-dimensional focus, expanding the arguments made in article outputs. The literature in its current state tends to focus on the degree of control UN agencies and member nations, particularly the United States, exerted over addictive substances, such as cocaine, heroin and marijuana. The manuscript instead focuses on how a wide range of global organisations have tried to account for the multiple meanings of drugs. While supply reduction, prohibition and control aspects (particularly the US war on drugs and illegal trafficking during the 1990s) has been much discussed, not just in academia but popular culture, it is imperative that we use rich social historical methods to uncover how the international drug control system in totality was intended and continues to try to be a holistic governing structure, in which international health agencies with medical and disease expertise such as WHO have played a critical under-addressed role.
Second is to use this new material to develop a larger collaborative research grant proposal. As an early career postdoctoral research fellow, my aim is to win a major research grant that collaborates with policy experts, uses interdisciplinary research methods and reaches a broader cross-sectoral global audience. Thus, I plan to strengthen my case for larger grant proposals by participating in seminars with other Brocher visiting researchers, particularly those working on psychiatry and pharmacology, as well as exploring linkages with Swiss and European institutions that have been historically significant or currently specialise in drugs policy. These include: the Transnational Institute (Netherlands), the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (Portugal), Harm Reduction International (UK) and the International Drug Policy Consortium (UK). Major grants and funders targeted are: Wellcome Trust, Academy of Medical Sciences, Global Challenges Research Fund, Leverhulme and British Academy.
I am a contemporary historian of global health, international development and drug control at Nagoya University's Graduate School of International Development. Currently working on a book on the role of the World Health Organization on the UN drug control system, my next projects will examine Japan's role in development financing from the 1980s onwards and WHO's role in facilitating equitable access to vaccines from AIDS to COVID-19.
Faculty Profile: https://profs.provost.nagoya-u.ac.jp/html/100011964_en.html
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