title: Studying up harm reduction policy: the office as an assemblage.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  By recounting the making of the office that contributed to the implementation of the harm reduction policy in Taiwan, this paper aims to answer two questions: Who and what assembled to make this policy possible? Which conceptual tool works best to understand what this policy-making was all about?
  
  
  METHODS
  The research was designed as a multi-sited qualitative study whose materials were collected through archival research, in-depth interviews, and direct field observation. The data were analysed on the basis of the constructivist version of grounded theory.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Formulating the office as an assemblage with heterogeneous components and shifting territories, the present work endeavours to show how it was constituted by way of guanxi, or webs of social relationship that blur the boundary between the private and the public, the governmental and the social.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This "studying up" approach is hoped to elicit more research on the office in which harm reduction policies are made into the backdrop of drug users on the street.
authors: Department of Psychiatry, Shuang Ho Hospital, Taipei Medical University, Taiwan. jschen1973@gmail.com
authors: Jia-Shin
authors: JS
authors: Chen
mesh_terms: D000288:Administrative Personnel; D000701:Analgesics, Opioid / Q000008:administration & dosage; D002047:Buprenorphine / Q000008:administration & dosage; D000069479:Buprenorphine, Naloxone Drug Combination; D055030:Drug Users / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D004335:Drug and Narcotic Control / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000458:organization & administration; D033161:Government Regulation; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000635:transmission; D040261:Harm Reduction; D006291:Health Policy / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008691:Methadone / Q000008:administration & dosage; D009270:Naloxone / Q000008:administration & dosage; D018671:Needle-Exchange Programs / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000458:organization & administration; D058850:Opiate Substitution Treatment; D011050:Policy Making; D017149:Private Sector / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012919:Social Behavior; D013060:Speech; D015819:Substance Abuse, Intravenous / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D013624:Taiwan / Q000453:epidemiology
chemical_list: D000701:Analgesics, Opioid; D000069479:Buprenorphine, Naloxone Drug Combination; D009270:Naloxone; D002047:Buprenorphine; D008691:Methadone