Talk:Medicalization of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside

Hello,

I really appreciated your page on the DTES, it was a very interesting read. I enjoyed how organized and concise your subheadings are, and the information within them are. Particularly, I found the subheading "Demographics" a very good summary. However, I feel that there was a little bit of detail or a deeper lens missing from this analysis that would have aided in your intersectionality lens. I think that when analyzing any component about the DTES, it is important to also look at how the local Indigenous peoples have been displaced, and who did that displacing. To further that, you could have looked at the current relationship that local Indigenous peoples and urban communities have with the land and the place now. That being said, I really enjoyed reading your page! Good job!

I really liked how you balance the negative and positive implication of medicalization. Medicalization is such a complex issue, because communities that are subject to it rely on it, but at the same time it brings along stigma and takes away autonomy. So it's nice to see both sides represented here.

Your article is already pretty long so I don't know if there is space, but I think it might be important to place medicalization with respect to criminilization. People in the DTES are heavily criminalized by the VPD, there are cop cars there continually trying to intimidate people. And I wonder if medicalisation of the DTES actively resists this criminal model or if it just exists adjacent to it.

Hi Noah, thanks for your feedback! I definitely think that there is a huge overlap between medicalization and criminalization, especially in the context of the DTES. It goes without saying that both frames are equally important to consider. I think the focus I wanted to draw upon was the specific effects of medicalization, as one of the MANY frames, including criminalization as you mentioned!

Hi Dan, I found this topic very interesting! I like how you used the concept of framing to guide your analysis. I noticed that you mention Insite in the “Responses to Medicalization” section however, I am wondering if it may be worth mentioning how organizations such as Insite play a role in the medicalization of addiction (and not just the response). Just a thought!

Best,

Talia

Hi Talia,

Thanks for your feedback! Was there something specific about the role of these institutions you were thinking of? I was thinking of adding to it for my final draft.

I saw your page on the medicalization of aging bodies and I am really impressed! You mention the role of the biomedical model and how it acts as a form of social control. Do you think that there is a way to incorporate social stereotypes around aging into your article - specifically related to how it intertwines with the biomedical model? I think that would be an interesting take.

Best,

Dan

Hi Dan, regarding Insite, my initial inclination was to view the organization as promoting medicalization of addiction in a way that is positive given that framing addiction as a medical condition may take some of the blame off the individual. I think that the medicalization of addiction is a separate but related issue from the medicalization of the DTES as a neighborhood given that not every resident of the DTES is a drug user, yet these identities may become fused in the public eye.

Also, thanks for your feedback on my Wiki page! That is an interesting thought about how social stereotypes around aging may relate to a cultural emphasis on the biomedical model and is something I had not previously considered! I will definitely review the literature on the topic and incorporate the findings into my page.

Thanks,

Talia

Dan Kim (18238162)