Seminar with Jenni Savonen on a social representations approach to illicit drug use
Seminar
Date:Wednesday 3 December 2025
Time:13.13 – 14.30
Location:Campus Albano, Room 23, Albano House 4, Floor 2
Wednesday December 3, Jenni Savonen, UEF - Law School, Faculty of Social Sciences and Business Studies, University of Eastern Finland, will give a seminar in the Department of Public Health Sciences at Stockholm University's seminar series PHS Talks. Savonen will talk about a social representations approach to illicit drug use, how the issue is perceived in society and how it affects policies and the identity construction of people who use drugs.
Seminar title: A social representations approach to illicit drug use Time: 13:13–14:30 Location: Campus Albano, Room 23, Albano House 4, Floor 2
Jenni Savonen is a social psychologist working as a researcher at the University on Eastern Finland. Her PhD research was on the social representations of illicit drug use – on how the issue is perceived in society and how it affects policies and the identity construction of people who use drugs. Savonen has also worked with other dependence-related projects at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare and is currently studying the realization of rights of older people with substance use.
Seminar Abstract
Lay knowledge, or social representations, regarding illicit drug use create what we believe to be true and thus have an impact on our actions. According to my PhD study, illicit drug use is socially represented through notions of self and other, morality, risk and self-control. Lay knowledge on illicit drug use is, however, not homogenous, and from a social psychological viewpoint, illicit drug use can be seen as a normified phenomenon and a naturalized social representation. This suggests that although illicit drug use is a salient and in ways unremarkable part of our current societies, it has not become normalized to the point of being insignificant or non-stigmatized. Lay knowledge on illicit drugs is related to views on drug policy: the more risk people attribute to drug use, the more hesitant they are towards harm reduction measures. Finally, lay knowledge affects identities as people who use illicit drugs construct their identities by positioning themselves in relation to salient social representations.
The seminar is arranged by the Department of Public Health Sciences, Stockholm University.
