Solidarity and Care Practices Among Young People Who Use Drugs in Poland

Solidarity and mutual care attract significant attention from social researchers when the social issues they address gain public recognition and become politicized. However, caring for others sometimes does not fit into the categories of solidarity most commonly analyzed in relation to social movements, collectives, and emerging self-help groups in the context of crises. Drawing on qualitative research conducted among youth who use opioids in various cities in Poland, I aim to examine solidarity practices that are often overlooked in research due to their dispersed and temporal, yet affective and crucial for survival, nature.

The use of psychoactive substances is criminalized in Poland, and opioid users who use them face stigmatization and violence, particularly in the context of interactions with state institutions such as courts, police, and healthcare. Additionally, there is no visible mass social movement formed around this issue. Everyday solidarity and care in this case key are responses to the chronic crisis in which these individuals find themselves (treated not as an event but as a context, following Henrik Vigh).

The practices I want to discuss in my presentation relate to both survival and improving a sense of security (e.g., mutual assistance in emergency rooms, providing shelter, offering substances to alleviate withdrawal symptoms) and pleasure (e.g., being together, engaging in joint projects, sharing thoughts and emotions). The presented analysis will serve to develop an expanded definition of solidarity by incorporating practices that are often invisible in public debates, occurring in response to the chronic, slow violence of the state, dispersed, and individualized. I will focus primarily on those practices that strengthen emotional bonds and make life more livable for drug users.