Social research at IB Hochschule für Gesundheit und Soziales in times of the corona pandemic
Since the beginning of June 2019, a research project has been running under the umbrella of IB Hochschule at the Berlin location that, under the project title "Governing the Narcotic City" (GONACI), addresses diverse everyday forms of consumption, discourses and narratives of and about substances called "drugs". The project, funded by the humanities-oriented HERA research fund of the EU over three years, is being carried out by six research groups: in Amsterdam, in Copenhagen/Aarhus, in Bordeaux, at the Cultural Studies Institute (KWI) Essen/Duisburg, at the University of Erlangen and at IB Hochschule Berlin. The core areas of research include various case studies on contemporary and historical examples.
More on this is available on our website: https://www.narcotic.city/
From the beginning, this methodologically/conceptually as well as thematically social- and cultural-science-oriented research project has understood itself as a discussion forum that wants to connect not only the perspectives from different countries and cities particularly associated with drug cultures, but also – through collaboration with civil society actors, initiatives, museums and professionals from the fields of public health/social work – to overcome the isolated discussion areas that have so far characterised the different fields of action and policy, not only on the topic of drugs.
Alongside building up a "living archive" – a place to collect various artefacts, social objects, narratives and other representations – direct exchange at events for the interested public and at workshops within the research project has been of central importance from the start.
This beautiful, stimulating and complex research practice – and our further project planning – received a first heavy blow no later than the end of March in the wake of the corona pandemic and the associated travel warnings and entry bans: a project workshop in Amsterdam, prepared over several months, had to be cancelled, along with a series of exciting talks, museum tours, talk rounds and meetings with local actors and activists. Several lecture trips to international congresses were also cancelled. Internally, since then, we have been trying to maintain discussion and professional exchange as much as possible through regular online meetings. We try to stimulate the debate with our partners and interested groups through a current GONACI newsletter.
Nevertheless, in fact and in practice, almost all case studies are no longer feasible in their respective planned research designs. Direct contact with people, accompanying observation and the sensory grasp of concrete situations as well as being present at exciting places have a central importance in social science (field) research. All this is currently – if not made impossible by strict curfews such as those still in place in France at the end of May – impossible or at least very difficult.
Key questions: How can we still maintain contact and exchange with our research partners? How do we adapt our research methods, grounded in fieldwork and empirical cultural studies, to a situation whose end is also not foreseeable? How do we convey to funders the necessity of a revised project plan, not only with regard to time management but also with regard to the promised results/"products"?
Like for a large part of the population, the GONACI project also faces a daily life shaped by the corona pandemic, alongside the project-internal challenges. All researchers of the Hera project work primarily as lecturers/professors and have for weeks been confronted with the practice of mobile work, contact restrictions and stricter lockdowns, homeschooling and concern for relatives, friends and themselves. The many necessary reorientations in everyday life mean that this time is not a comfortable period of contemplation, deep reading and reflection for us, but rather a massive increase in tasks of caring, organising, coping – in short, working. Our GONACI research project in the pandemic suffers above all from the lack of time and emotional space, from the difficulty of concentrating on the research topic and having the time available for it. This is, despite the diverse research focuses and everyday conditions also of the international colleagues, the clearest effect of the crisis!
And so it applies here too, as in all other areas of life: there will be no simple return to (research) normality in the GONACI project either, and it is not yet foreseeable in which direction this liminal (research) journey will go! Or to end with a paraphrased quote by Antonio Gramsci: "The old is dead, but the new has not yet been born! It is the time of monsters."
Graphic "Drugs Survey" source: https://testing.surveycto.com/collect/lockdown042020 SONAR – Safer Nightlife Berlin