Sylvia McKelvie

Care-in-Place: Towards a Geography of Harm Reduction Activism and Advocacy in Greater Los Angeles

Sylvia is a DPhil candidate in Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford. She holds an MSc in City Design and Social Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a BA in Sociology from the University of British Columbia. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed publications including City & Community, Critical Disability Discourses and the anthology Bioinformation: Worlds and Futures. Prior to her DPhil, Sylvia held research and policy positions at King’s College Hospital (NHS Foundation Trust) and the National Institute for Health and Care Research.

Sylvia's doctoral research explores drug-related harm reduction activism and advocacy in Greater Los Angeles. She examines how practices of care are produced and sustained through the everyday work of harm reduction organisations operating across marginal (sub)urban spaces, including sidewalks, parks and homeless encampments. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted alongside low-barrier syringe service programmes, she investigates how relationships between harm reduction workers, people who use drugs, service providers and local officials mediate the possibilities of care and care work. Attending to the emotional dynamics of this work, including grief, anger, joy and solidarity, the research contributes to health geography, critical drug studies and feminist science and technology studies by conceptualising harm reduction as a spatial, relational and affective practice.

Sylvia is also a co-founder of the Oxford Spatial Action Lab (OxSAL), a research collective that facilitates participatory workshops and knowledge exchange between the University and local stakeholders around issues of spatial injustice in Oxford.