Alcoholism-treatment-center-based projects

This chapter has three main objectives. First, it seeks to identify a variety of alcoholism-treatment settings, medical and nonmedical, in which anthropologists have conducted or could profitably conduct anthropological research. Hospital inpatient settings, nonmedical inpatient facilities, counseling-rehabilitation centers, public and private institutional service sectors (e.g., law enforcement, occupations, education), and "folk" or untested spontaneous strategies are discussed. Second, it attempts to point out some of the problems anthropologists have had or might expect to have in gaining access to these settings. Some of the reasons are structural, others have to do with overcoming anthropology's traditional biases for research, while still others involve the resolution of certain ethical dilemmas if alcohol research is to be carried out with anthropology's conventional strategies. The third objective is to provide a strong stimulus of encouragement for anthropologists to do "field work" in these varied treatment settings.