Maidens at risk: 'date rape drugs' and the formation of hybrid risk knowledges

The ill-defined set of substances and behaviours collected under the name 'date rape drugs' present an opportunity to rethink risk management and the ways in which risk is studied in governmentality analyses. We borrow and develop Bakhtin's notion of the 'chronotope' - the spatially specific temporality constituting each literary genre - to understand how the risks associated with certain illicit drugs consumed by youth at weekend parties are thought of as inhering in a chronotope rather than in some chemicals. This chronotope, like most others, is gendered, but the gender-specific character of both the risks of partying and the friendship networks mobilized to prevent mishaps is denied by the educational materials: risks are simultaneously gendered and de-gendered.The insights generated by this study highlight the importance of relying on a more flexible toolbox for doing research on knowledges of risk.