This proposal focuses on a branch of the new project designed by the Minerva Center on Intersectionality in Aging (MCIA) that among other commitments plans to investigate bridges between multiply marginalized older adults and mainstream society. The proposed project by Dr. Sultan commits to MCIA’s objectives and adds a novel approach by involving an array of theoretical and methodological commitments informed by STS and intersectionality. This includes exploration and integration of the concepts of age and aging, drug, and marginalization all framed from a material gerontological perspective. The aim is to approach marginalization in older age via exploring the use of pharmaceutical drugs for other than medically prescribed purposes. Remaining a conceptual research in its first stage, the project inquires the literature and emerging debates to ask following questions: Are older adults more likely to be marginalized for drug use?; Where are the gaps in research on ageing drug user cohorts?; What are the gaps in current care services for drug users in general and what are specifics for older adult population in need of such services? How does marginalization of older adults who use drugs intersect with age and their needs for care? The questions reveal in the initial stage a marginalization of drug use in older age as a topic of research itself. One way to look at extra-medical drug use and marginalization of older adults is through a prism of care. Examining the notion of care which informs our interventions, policies, and research ideas can be a beneficial start for developing the overall goals and future outcomes of this project. Within this proposal, the central STS reference on care is a Dutch ethnographer Annemarie Mol.  The theoretical underpinnings also involve central works of other STS scholars and empirical philosophers such as Bruno Latour, Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, Isabelle Stengers, John Law, and material gerontologists such as Julia Twigg, Gavin Andrews, Stephen Katz, Paul Higgs and others.

By taking STS approach, the project hopes to find out methodological as well as theoretical ways of inquiring drugs as objects of enhanced or self-care, wherein healthcare needs that are specific to ageing populations intersect with the marginalization in the provision and addressing of these as such.