On September 1, 2022, a group of harm reductionists and community members were brought together for a listening session entitled: “Listening for the Core of Radical Harm Reduction.” They listened to excerpts from recordings held with members of the Project SAFE community. Their conversation focused on locating the “radical core” that can neither be absorbed nor erased in the co-optation of harm reduction.
The group from this session, Mad Ecologies, then co-drafted a statement titled “The Philadelphia Principles”. You can read more and follow their ongoing work on their website.
Workgroup Members: Dont Rhine, Lulu Duffy-Tumasz, Raani Begum, Nick Angelo
The Philadelphia Principles, published January 1, 2023 by Mad Ecologies, emerged from interviews and listening sessions conducted in 2022 in Philadelphia. Participants in this process were asked to reflect on their relationship to drug use, sex work, and the larger harm reduction landscape. The accompanying zine, Mad Ecologies, compiles interviews with participants reflecting on the contradictions between public health definitions of harm reduction and a radical harm reduction that resists the class, racial, and gender violence that conditions life in our communities. The zine also includes protocols for workshops using the Philadelphia Principles for groups asking “What is a radical practice of harm reduction?”
Mad Ecologies led a workshop on radical harm reduction and the world we want at Rosine 2.0 in Practice at Icebox Project Space on March 18, 2023. The workshop was designed as a continuation of this process, using the Philadelphia Principles as a catalyst for further inquiry. Taking inspiration from the listening sessions the principles were formed out of, participants explored together both their own relationship to harm reduction and the world they want to build, and if the Philadelphia Principles serve as a useful tool on this journey.
