Contributions

Pragmatic and policy: By augmenting a body of knowledge that provides relevant insight to: (a) cross-departmental government policy makers in SA and other countries of the Global South; (b) NGOs and CBOs working with the secondary effects of alcohol; (c) the alcohol industry’s social responsibility agenda; (d) international organisations (e.g. WHO, World Bank); (e) the policy community in other low/ middle income countries and (f) developed countries (inc. the UK) seeking novel understandings of and approaches to alcohol control.

Empirical: By contributing important new qualitative datasets about the drinking practices of the poor and their relationship to broader development policies and objectives in SA to the alcohol studies field. This is imperative due to the growing strategic importance of alcohol to global health and development agendas as well as national, regional and local-scale policy strategies (Coghlan, 2008; Grimm, 2008).

Theoretical: By conjoining ecological approaches to health and place with urban political ecology frameworks to critically interrogate narratives of the situated and lived experiences of drinking. This perspective aims to challenge the propensity for epidemiologic and public health approaches to alcohol to neglect the voices of the poorest and most vulnerable drinkers, despite them being at greatest risk.