Housing as an (Un)Happy Object: Affective Dynamics of Drug Use,Housing Insecurity,and Harm Reduction Among Women

Abstract

Research on drug use and housing insecurity among women has revealed experiences of violence, stigma, anxiety, emotional displacement, and ontological insecurity. Despite this, there is limited research on the affective dynamics that influence women's experiences with drug use and housing insecurity. This study is based on 170 hours of participant observation at two harm reduction services in Denmark and includes 29 qualitative interviews with women utilizing those services. Drawing on Ahmed's concept of “happy objects,” this article critically explores how the embodied and emotional experiences of women who use drugs regarding housing and houselessness are shaped by societal ideals, values, and objects associated with a “good” and “happy” life. The analysis demonstrates that housing is not simply viewed as a “happy” or “unhappy” object by the women in this study. For many participants, the hope that housing would lead to a better life was often undermined by their social relations, challenges in creating and maintaining a home, poverty and deprivation, and the structural constraints of the Danish welfare system. While the hope for secure housing persisted, their experiences with houselessness, drug use, and structural vulnerability were imbued with feelings of fear, shame, and alienation. Many women cycled between housing and houselessness, frequently returning to harm reduction services, which intensified their ambivalent feelings of these spaces. Based on these findings, this study argues that housing strategies and harm reduction services are entangled and should be understood as interdependent in order to best capture the lived realities of women who use drugs.