Throughout Space Hacks, we build on the foundations laid by the original Harm Reduction Hacks by using a shared language. This includes key definitions and concepts that support a consistent, inclusive, and grounded approach to harm reduction, social justice, and health equity. Below you’ll find brief explanations of the terms and ideas used throughout the project.

• Uses and defines “social location” as “the social position an individual holds within their society, based upon social characteristics deemed to be important by any given society.” Some of the social characteristics deemed to be important in the US include economic and social class, race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, physical ability, age, regional origin, and appearance.
• Uses and defines “structural violence” as “the multiple ways in which social, economic, and political systems expose some groups to disproportionate risks and vulnerabilities leading to increased morbidity and mortality.” Those systems include income inequality, racism, classism, homophobia, sexism, ageism, ableism, lookism, and other means of social exclusion leading to increased vulnerabilities, such as poverty, stress, trauma, mental illness, substance misuse, crime, incarceration, and lack of access to care, healthy food, and physical activity.
• Uses and defines “cultural humility” as “the ability to maintain an interpersonal stance that is other-oriented and open to others in relation to aspects of cultural identity that are most important to the other person.”
• Uses and defines “cultural competency” as “the ability to understand, appreciate and interact with people from cultures or belief systems different from one’s own.”
• Uses and defines “drug use” as “a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon that encompasses a continuum of behaviors from intense chaos to complete functionality and acknowledges that some ways of using drugs are clearly safer than others.”
• Uses and defines “peer-reviewed evidence” as “research that has been evaluated and critiqued by researchers and experts in the same field before the information is published.”
• Occasionally uses the phrase “proximate community members” to mean all of the friends, loved ones, and neighbors who may not use drugs, to whom harm reduction programs provide services in addition to people who use drugs.