Fiona S. Martin

Cross appointment

• Gender and Women's Studies
• Law, Justice and Society

Education

• BA, Queen’s University
• MA, PhD, University of Melbourne

Research interests

Fiona Martin is a sociologist who engages in a theoretically- and critically-informed analysis of health, with a specific focus on drug use, gender, and social marginalization and policy. She is also interested in personhood, contemporary family life and the social organization and significance of other intimate, interpersonal relationships.

Dr. Martin’s current research looks cross-culturally at the nexus of relations between families, agencies and the state vis-à-vis the parents who use opioids’ pathways through the health and social care system. She is also currently studying the social, special and policy arrangements that govern pregnant women’s access to opiate substitution treatment in Nova Scotia, the role of Atlantic Canadian addiction treatment services in meeting a range of users’ health and social needs, and the experiences of caregivers for those engaged with the substance use treatment system in Canada. Dr. Martin’s previous research projects have included a critical analysis of the causes and consequences of women’s “substance abuse” as they are framed in epidemiological and clinical literature and an exploration of the social networks and social meanings that inform key moments in drug-using trajectories, with a focus on young pregnant women and mothers in the process of disengaging from injecting drug use. 

Selected publications

• Martin, F.S. (2019). Engaging with motherhood and parenthood: A commentary on the social science drugs literature. International journal of drug policy
• Martin, F.S. (2016) “Rethinking harm reduction and pregnancy:  A study of pregnant women’s expectations and experiences of opiate substitution treatment.” In C.B.R. Smith & Z. Marshall, Eds. Critical Approaches to Harm Reduction: Conflict, Institutionalization, (De-) Politicization, and Direct Action. Hauppaugue, New York: Nova Science Publishers.
• Martin, F.S. & Aston, S. (2014) A "special population" with "unique treatment needs": Dominant representations of" women's substance abuse" and their effects. Contemporary Drug Problems, 41, 3, pp. 335-360. [PDF - 2.2 MB]
• Jackson, L., McWilliam, S., Martin, F. Dykeman, M., Gahagan, J., & Karabanow, J. (2014) Key challenges in meeting the needs of people who use drugs: The perspectives of people working in emergency departments and shelters in Atlantic Canada. Drugs: education, policy, prevention 21, 3: 244-253. [PDF - 225 kB]
• Martin, F.S. (2011). Deep entanglements: Identity, embodiment and the complexities of disengaging from injecting drug use in the lives of young mothers. Contemporary Drug Problems 38, no. 3: 335-366.
• Martin, F.S. (2010). Becoming vulnerable: young women’s accounts of initiation to injecting drug use, Addiction Research and Theory 18, 5: 511-527.