Book Review: Recovering assemblages: Unfolding sociomaterial relations of drug use and recovery by Aysel Sultan

• Published date: 01 September 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10575677231168845
• Author: Shawnee Harkness
• Date: 01 September 2023
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

Many of the chapters used the cliched academic chapter launch by identifying the absence of a

clear (or unif‌ied, or international) def‌inition of the term(s) as if that was unique. That brought to

light the absence of an agreed upon def‌inition for the collection, which might have provided more

of a unifying theme. Ironically, in a collection of chapters identifying the nexus between organized

crime and terrorism, no listing of either topic was found in the index, which appeared to have been

compiled based on index work submitted by the individual authors.

This book will clearly contribute to the literature because of the breadth of analysis of this largely

overlooked topic. It should also make for a provocative contribution, hopefully inspiring scholars and

practitioners alike to address the void in multidisciplinary literature regarding the nexus of organized

crime and terrorism.

ORCID iD

Carter F. Smith https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0428-494X

Aysel Sultan (2022).

Recovering assemblages: Unfolding sociomaterial relations of drug use and recovery. Palgrave Macmillan. Place

Springer Nature Singapore. Hardcover GBP 24.99, eBook GBP 71.50. ISBN 978-981-19-1234-4, ISBN 978-

981-19-1235-1.

Reviewed by: Shawnee Harkness ,University of Southampton, UK

DOI: 10.1177/10575677231168845

Within diverse f‌ields of drug research and policy, theoretical and practical challenges revolve around

traditions that construct drug use and recovery in opposition. Alongside tendencies to debate whether

or not users “deserve”effective services and support, this approach is as unproductive as it is

harmful. Contributing to growing bodies of literature that address these issues head-on, Dr. Aysel

Sultan’sf‌irst book rethinks recovery and breaks down oversimplif‌ied dichotomies. Recovering

Assemblages (2022), postulates more critical discussions regarding traditional understandings of

drug use and recovery by asking what recovery really means: where does it start, does it end, or

is it in “continuous circulation”? Using cross-national ethnographic stories of her participants’

day-to-day lives, Sultan explores the complexities between recovery and drug use to develop a

greater understanding of diverse pathways in the experience of recovery.

Sultan’s comparative research examines the links between sociomaterial relations, context, drug

use and recovery. Overarching questions as to how people ‘do’recovery and how drug policies and

national discourses enforce it, illuminate the more pertinent question of how we should approach the

subject. From the perspective of youth, this book draws attention to forms of recovery characterized

by her participants and expressed through assemblage theory (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987; Law, 2009),

science and technology (STS), and actor-network theory (ANT). Divided into three sections, the f‌irst

part encourages readers to rethink recovery. After brief discussions of def‌initions, processes, and

understandings of recovery from different sources, Sultan seamlessly connects the seemingly dispa-

rate dots between assemblage theory, STS, and ANT. Combining materialist ontology, posthumanist,

and rational thinking (Latour, 2005), Sultan focuses on the local environmental factors that impact

drug use, recovery, and agency in different national contexts, providing comparative accounts of per-

ceptions of drug use and recovery from Azerbaijan and Germany. Following Latour’s (2005) take on

the meaning of the ’social’as ’relational understanding’, the diversity of experience in young

people’s narratives is a key theme throughout. Capturing the lived experiences of her participants,

Sultan was able to communicate “matters of [greater] concern”.

Book Review 337