University of Tasmania
Browse

File(s) under permanent embargo

On islands, insularity, and opium poppies: Australia's secret pharmacy

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-17, 02:48 authored by Williams, S
Islands embody a contradictory geography. Although insularity has negative connotations, the related aspects of uniqueness, smallness, secrecy, security, isolation, and remoteness all have strategic roles in situating Australia's production of licit narcotics as an international success with poppy cultivation confined to the island state of Tasmania. Through the boundaries and dualisms inscribed in the discourses of islandness and drug rhetoric, the state's ultramodern manufacture of pharmaceuticals is contrasted with others elsewhere, including opium and illegal drug production. Their representations simplify the more intricate and challenging geopolitical realities that link this industry to transnational corporations, state and federal governments, their agencies, and various UN organisations. In a poststructural reading, the secrets of islands and drugs are suggested to comprise what Derrida terms aporia or impossible situations: Tasmania and its poppy industry are isolated from a global otherness yet entwine different peoples and places in connecting complex material practices both licit and illicit at multiple scales all around the world. However, these aporia also present new political and ethical openings with significance for island studies as well as for narcotics production and its regulation. © 2010 Pion Ltd and its Licensors.

History

Publication title

Environment and Planning D: Society and Space

Volume

28

Pagination

290-310

ISSN

0263-7758

Department/School

School of Geography, Planning and Spatial Sciences

Publisher

Pion Ltd

Place of publication

207 Brondesbury Park, London, England, Nw2 5Jn

Rights statement

Copyright 2010 Pion Ltd.

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Evaluation of health and support services not elsewhere classified

Usage metrics

    University Of Tasmania

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC