Abolitionist and Agrarian Possibilities in Extension-Community Partnerships for Justice Involved People Who Use(d) Drugs

Abolitionist and Agrarian Possibilities in Extension-Community Partnerships for Justice Involved People Who Use(d) Drugs

Project Team
Justine Lindemann, Assistant Professor, Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education
Kristina Brant, Assistant Professor, Rural Sociology

Project Funding
SSRI Level 1 - Working Group

Project Description

The continued criminalization and stigmatization of substance use isolates both people who use drugs and people in recovery from their broader communities. Communities facing high levels of substance use disorder and overdose amid the opioid crisis have fractured socially, with waning levels of trust and social cohesion. Abolitionism challenges the carceral logic that undergirds the country’s response to substance use; abolitionist approaches stand to support individual-level well-being while also promoting community-level healing. We propose a Level 1 grant to jumpstart an initiative at Penn State focused on the intersection of substance use, criminal justice involvement, agriculture, and food systems through an abolitionist lens. We will form a working group of interdisciplinary researchers and Extension professionals and host a symposium at PSU to cultivate research-Extension-community partnerships. Ultimately, we hope these partnerships will result in the development of innovative interventions that leverage food and agriculture to help people who use(d) drugs build recovery capital while also forging bridges between people who use(d) drugs and people who are justice involved and their broader communities. Research- Extension-community partnerships will provide a natural platform to apply for funding to implement and evaluate these interventions, ultimately informing scholarship, policy, and practice.