Models, experts and mutants: Exploring the relationships between peer educators and injecting drug user clients, in Delhi’s harm reduction programs

Abstract

The article, based on nine months of ethnographic fieldwork, explores the relationships between peer educators and their clients, under the harm reduction paradigm in Delhi, India. The study examines the way peer workers engage with their clients and manage their own recovery at the same time. The article argues three key points. First, peer educators came to be considered as harm reduction’s most crucial link, they were models for the clients and their expertise about street life was invaluable for the success of the program. They adapted and expanded their roles based on client needs, despite structural and resource limitations. Second, peer educators’ own struggles with addiction threatened their position within the program; it raised questions of efficacy, ethics and empowerment with regard to the peer model. Lastly, the tensions around the peer educators’ role and their continued drug use, revealed larger contradictions within the Indian harm reduction model. These findings more broadly highlight the issues of peer-client relationship dynamics and peer participation in service delivery within social work.