Ethnographic Research

Question 1

Key elements of ethnographic research with drug users

Answer 1

• in-depth interviews
• participant observation
• develop insider perspective
• in the shoes, see local realities
• observe in the natural setting

Question 2

premodern quasi-ethnography

Answer 2

• work carried out by amateurs
• no use of the scientific method
• limited and unsystematic
• remain valuable documentation of drug use behavior

Question 3

early modernist ethnography

Answer 3

• era of modern ethnographic drug research
• systematic field observation
• as topic within anthropology and sociology
  anthropologists intergration of drug use into broader cultural systems
  sociologists maintained a deviance and social disruption perspective on the effects of urban life

Question 4

interim ‘autobiographical’ ethnography

Answer 4

• WWII created a lull in ethnography
• post war year: herion use in USA, intercity drug use - did not attract much attention
• drug use was seen as done by psych. damaged peopel or criminal deviants
• greatest insight from individual drug users in their own autobiographical texts

Question 5

systematic modernist ethnography

Answer 5

• sociocultural, meaning-centered approach to understanding drug use
• preference for face to face contact
• understanding and representing the world of the drug users
• countering the early images of the urban drug user

Question 6

what is now being studied?

systematic modernist ethnography

Answer 6

• underground economy
• social settings that comprise drug users’
• folk system used classify drug users
• processes of socialization
• special street argot

Question 7

important for moving forward

Ethnographic research drug users

Answer 7

• explaining and understanding new drug related practices
• continue providing important data on hidden populations
• contributing to multidisciplinary research
• documenting the negative impact of poorly designed policy on drug-related harm
• inform the design of future drug policy

Question 8

Challenges, limitations

Ethnographic research drug users

Answer 8

• time intensive
• unable to generalise its findings to the wider population
• unable to examine phenomena on a large scale like surveys

Question 9

Ethical issues

ethnographic research drug users

Answer 9

• consent
• vulnerability
• confidentiality
• protection from legal hazards