Fiona S. Martin

Associate Professor


Email: f.martin@dal.ca
Phone: 902-494-6750
Mailing Address: 
Room 3117, McCain Building, 6135 University Avenue PO Box 15000, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 4R2
 
Research Topics:
  • Critical health studies
  • Body and embodiment
  • Drug use
  • Gender
  • Knowledge, science and expertise
  • Personhood
  • Poverty and social marginalization
  • Reproduction and mothering

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