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Situating Stigma: An Ethnographic Exploration of How Stigma Arises in Interactions at Different Stages of People’s Drug Use Journeys
The association between stigma and drug use has been widely researched. However, to fully understand the nuances of stigma, as experienced by people who use drugs (PWUD), it is argued that we must look at the situations within which stigma is encountered. To obtain an ‘up close’ look at situated sti...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10572790/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37835164 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20196894 |
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author | Long, Fiona Catherine Jepsen, Kirsty Stuart |
author_facet | Long, Fiona Catherine Jepsen, Kirsty Stuart |
author_sort | Long, Fiona Catherine |
collection | PubMed |
description | The association between stigma and drug use has been widely researched. However, to fully understand the nuances of stigma, as experienced by people who use drugs (PWUD), it is argued that we must look at the situations within which stigma is encountered. To obtain an ‘up close’ look at situated stigma, data are drawn from two ethnographic studies—one set in a homeless hostel in the South of England and the other at a substance use service in South Wales. This article explores how PWUD experience and negotiate stigma at different stages of their drug use. We identify three notable themes across these settings. Firstly, ‘othering’ occurs in two distinct ways, by othering the past self or distancing from other PWUDs. Secondly, ‘drug exceptionalism’ is used to justify an individual’s drug use and express frustration at the associations between legality, social harm, and stigma. Finally, in ‘negotiating identities’, individuals present alternate identity roles to either demonstrate clashes in identity or to promote a conventionally positive sense of self. This article contributes to the existing literature on stigma, firstly, by comparing the stigma management strategies of those in active drug use and recovery and, secondly, by using this to highlight the importance of ethnography and situated stigma within this field. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10572790 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-105727902023-10-14 Situating Stigma: An Ethnographic Exploration of How Stigma Arises in Interactions at Different Stages of People’s Drug Use Journeys Long, Fiona Catherine Jepsen, Kirsty Stuart Int J Environ Res Public Health Article The association between stigma and drug use has been widely researched. However, to fully understand the nuances of stigma, as experienced by people who use drugs (PWUD), it is argued that we must look at the situations within which stigma is encountered. To obtain an ‘up close’ look at situated stigma, data are drawn from two ethnographic studies—one set in a homeless hostel in the South of England and the other at a substance use service in South Wales. This article explores how PWUD experience and negotiate stigma at different stages of their drug use. We identify three notable themes across these settings. Firstly, ‘othering’ occurs in two distinct ways, by othering the past self or distancing from other PWUDs. Secondly, ‘drug exceptionalism’ is used to justify an individual’s drug use and express frustration at the associations between legality, social harm, and stigma. Finally, in ‘negotiating identities’, individuals present alternate identity roles to either demonstrate clashes in identity or to promote a conventionally positive sense of self. This article contributes to the existing literature on stigma, firstly, by comparing the stigma management strategies of those in active drug use and recovery and, secondly, by using this to highlight the importance of ethnography and situated stigma within this field. MDPI 2023-10-07 /pmc/articles/PMC10572790/ /pubmed/37835164 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20196894 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Long, Fiona Catherine Jepsen, Kirsty Stuart Situating Stigma: An Ethnographic Exploration of How Stigma Arises in Interactions at Different Stages of People’s Drug Use Journeys |
title | Situating Stigma: An Ethnographic Exploration of How Stigma Arises in Interactions at Different Stages of People’s Drug Use Journeys |
title_full | Situating Stigma: An Ethnographic Exploration of How Stigma Arises in Interactions at Different Stages of People’s Drug Use Journeys |
title_fullStr | Situating Stigma: An Ethnographic Exploration of How Stigma Arises in Interactions at Different Stages of People’s Drug Use Journeys |
title_full_unstemmed | Situating Stigma: An Ethnographic Exploration of How Stigma Arises in Interactions at Different Stages of People’s Drug Use Journeys |
title_short | Situating Stigma: An Ethnographic Exploration of How Stigma Arises in Interactions at Different Stages of People’s Drug Use Journeys |
title_sort | situating stigma: an ethnographic exploration of how stigma arises in interactions at different stages of people’s drug use journeys |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10572790/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37835164 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20196894 |
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