Introduction: Rethinking Gender within Alcohol and Drug Use(r) Research

Gender has long been a central feature in research about users of drugs and alcohol, whether related to concerns about men and riotous bouts of drinking (Gutmann, 1996), research on women drug dealers (Maher & Hudson, 2007), or studies of women brewers in the 17th century (Clark, 1983). Much of the more contemporary research about gender and substance use has examined the extent to which male and female drinking practices differ and to what extent a convergence of drinking patterns is occurring. However, in spite of this long-standing interest, research on gender and drugs and alcohol has suffered from two tendencies. First, the dominant perspectives in the majority of alcohol and drug use(r) research in the USA, Europe, and Australia, until recently, have viewed alcohol and drug consumption primarily from a male point of view. The consumption of mind altering substances and the resulting intoxication have been viewed by researchers as being primarily an activity within the lives of men.¹ Second, the available research on gender and substance use has been slow to take account of, or incorporate, the new theoretical developments that have arisen from gender studies in the social science and humanities disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, human/cultural geography, and criminology.

Given this situation, in 2010 the editors of this special issue² began planning a conference on gender and drug and alcohol research. This conference “Gender and Sexualities: Revisioning Drug and Alcohol Research” eventually took place in October 2012 at Aarhus University in Denmark.³ The aim of the conference, and subsequently the aim of this special issue, was and is to examine new developments within gender studies and explore their potential usefulness for socio-cultural research on gender and substance use. The conference attracted over 60 participants from Europe and North America and provoked a number of lively debates among the participants. Many of the attendees felt that not only had the conference been successful but that the proceedings should also be given a wider coverage. With this in mind, the organizers decided to produce a special journal issue to further publicize the papers and to provide the research community with a window on contemporary gender research in the field of alcohol and drug use(r) studies. So began a process of selecting papers to reflect the wide range of topics discussed at the conference. Obviously, we were unable to include all the conference papers within this issue and have had to make some difficult decisions about which papers to select and which to omit. We were also keen to include a number of disciplines within this special issue and have chosen papers written by sociologists, anthropologists, criminologists, cultural studies researchers, psychologists, and historians. Even though some of the conference papers have not been included, we believe that all the participants who attended the conference and presented papers have made an important contribution both to this issue and to the development of thinking and research in the area of gender studies and substance use.

We have divided the nine selected papers into the following three sections:

• Producing, Selling, and Using Illicit Drugs: Accounting for Gender

• Gender, Dinking, and Intoxication

• Gender, Power, Deviance, and Drug Use

In addition to including three papers in each section, we commissioned three commentaries to provide an overview of each section. These commentaries are intended not as critiques of the papers, although some may include critical comments, but instead are intended as a personal response to the issues raised in the papers in each section and an indication of the significance of these issues. Sections 1 and 3 emphasize the importance of utilizing the latest theoretical frameworks within the study of gender. These include developments in “doing gender” perspectives, and theories of intersectionality as well as the importance of examining issues of gendered power in both empirical analysis of drug users and within in the dominant theoretical perspectives that hold sway within the field of addiction studies. In Section 2, the papers examine the often under-researched area of women, intoxication, and pleasure and the extent to which these issues become the focus of “moral panics” (Cohen, 2002).

USING AND SELLING ILLICIT DRUGS: ACCOUNTING FOR GENDER

To set the stage, we begin the special issue with a theoretical paper by Miller and Carbonne-Lopez that compares three theoretical approaches—“doing gender” framework; intersectionalities and the organization of illicit markets; and life-course research—to examining the interplay of gender and drugs. To do this they conducted 40 in-depth interviews with women methamphetamine users in Missouri in 2009. While acknowledging the debt to the “doing gender” approach (West & Zimmerman, 1987) in advancing our understanding of gender by “recognizing it not as an attribute of individuals” but instead as a “configuration of practices within a system of gender relations,” they nevertheless wish to raise concerns about the disproportionate emphasis on the normative features of gender. They emphasize the importance of moving beyond the “doing of gender” approach to also investigate “doing race, class, and place.” Unlike much of the available drug use(r) research, mostly based on samples from North America, which focuses on people of color in urban communities, the authors explore methamphetamine use among White, rural, and working class women in the US Midwest. In examining drug use among this population, they are able to explore the “racialized cultural understandings of white womanhood.” These notions of white womanhood can be seen in their narratives which emphasize narrative frames of supermom, superwoman, and superthin. Such narrative frames, while available to these white women, may be less readily available to drug users who are women of color, whose narrative accounts may be more influenced by reacting to dominant media accounts of crack mothers, crime, and prostitution. Miller and Carbonne-Lopez use a gendered life-course analysis to offer further insights into why narratives of motherhood and domestic responsibilities predominated in the interviews. Charting how the often precocious transitions into motherhood and other adult domestic roles often contributed to the onset of methamphetamine use, they provide an additionally important social context in which to situate these narratives. Finally, as a way of further deepening our understanding of gender and gender hierarchies, the authors examine the specific social context of women methamphetamine users and explore their role not only as consumers but also as sellers and producers. In providing an analysis at the organizational level, the analysis can offer great promise for enriching our understanding of “the processes that create, sustain, and even undermine the exclusion and marginalization of women with drug networks.”

Issues of gender and drug selling are further explored in the next two papers by Ludwick et al. and Moloney et al. Although research on early drug sales was to a large extent male-dominated, a number of important studies about women drug sellers and their participation in drug markets have been produced (see, Anderson, 2005; Maher & Hudson, 2007). As a result of these studies, and as a result of the changing roles of women in drug economies, debates abound about women’s relative levels of empowerment in drug markets versus their continuing exploitation, victimization, or powerlessness. In spite of women’s increasing role in the drug economy, researchers have still pointed to the extent to which drug markets continue to be gender-stratified. Ludwick et al., using data from over 200 in-depth interviews with women drug sellers in the San Francisco Bay Area during 2006–2009, sought to examine not only “doing gender” in drug selling but also how different types of drugs sold intersected with doing gender and race. They discovered that while some women played up their femininity in order to hide themselves from detection by the police, others, in adopting more traditionally masculine roles, deviated from more traditional gender norms. In using data from two projects, one that involved interviewing women drug dealers who sold street drugs and the other involving women selling only prescription drugs, Ludwick et al. were able to examine the effects of different drug types on both drug selling and performance of gender. Different drugs influenced the type of drug market in which the women were involved. For example, some women believed that selling “harder” or more addictive drugs meant having to deal with customers, who might be more desperate to get their drugs. In these situations, the women may face more potential issues of violence. Finally, in exploring the interconnections between gender and ethnicity, they discovered, perhaps not surprisingly, that white women dealers felt that their racial appearance “served as an added benefit” and greater protection. However, while this finding may not be that surprising, what was more significant was the extent to which Asian American women drug sellers, a group rarely investigated, also felt protected by their racial experience. They felt that being women and being Asian allowed them to hide behind the stereotype of Asians as a “model minority,” and hence remain undetected by the police.

In the last paper in this section, Moloney et al. also examined female drug dealers in the San Francisco Bay Area, but unlike those respondents interviewed by Ludwick et al., their drug sellers were all members of street gangs. Traditionally, the role of women in the gang has been either downplayed or neglected (Joe-Laidler & Hunt, 1997). Researchers characterized female members as either maladjusted tomboys or sexual deviants, who were mere appendages to male gang members (Joe & Chesney-Lind, 1995). Characterizing female gang involvement solely in subordinate positions, either as individual girlfriends or collectively as “auxiliaries” (e.g., little sisters), inadequately captures the ways that women in the gang can play an active role while still operating in a male-dominated environment. This has meant that with a few notable exceptions, much of the research on gangs and drug dealing has been on men and their experiences. With this in mind, Moloney et al. explored women’s involvement in drug selling within the gang and specifically their notions of risk. Using data from over 250 interviews during 2007–2010, with both women and men in the gang, they examined how salient gender was in shaping risk perceptions, experiences, and behaviors within drug markets. Their starting point was to emphasize the importance of examining risk “from the perspective and experiences of embodied, gendered subjects, to understand how they evaluate, interpret, embrace, and seek to mitigate risks in their lives.” They show that while women drug dealers face many of the same risks and dangers experienced by their male counterparts, they also have to confront risks emanating for the patriarchal nature of the street. In confronting these issues, women in the gang, unlike those interviewed by Ludwick et al., have the choice of selling alone or in groups. Both of these possible strategies have drawbacks and while some of the women interviewed felt it was safer to be part of a group, others preferred to operate alone.

In examining their narratives, Moloney et al. highlight the extent to which gendered differences in risks operated. Like Ludwick et al.’s respondents, women felt less monitored than their male colleagues and believed that they could operate “below-the-radar.” They also felt that men were particularly vulnerable to the risk of arrest because of their tendency to be too “flashy” in acting the role of “big men.” The women dealers believed that they were much more discreet and therefore less likely to be targeted by the police. Furthermore, while they may feel more vulnerable to violent victimization, they were, at the same time, able to use their bodies as a “resource,” in ways that were unavailable to the men. Finally, Moloney et al. explore another significant gendered difference which is the extent to which the women discussed the emotional risks of drug dealing, a form of risk rarely if ever discussed by the men. While some women discussed their concerns about their families and specifically their children finding out, others expressed the fear of losing their children if they were caught and arrested. Such narratives exhibit the extent to which the consequences of drug dealing are highly gendered. Moreover, they highlighted the ways in which gender and risk were deeply intertwined within their discourses. Just as feminist criminologists (Chesney-Lind, 1995; Chesney-Lind & Pasko, 2004; Collier, 1998; Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005; Joe-Laidler & Hunt, 2001; Messerschmidt, 1993; Miller, 2002) have emphasized the extent to which crime is used to accomplish femininity and masculinity, these narratives underscore the ways that gender may be drawn upon as a resource to accomplish crime.

Overall, the three papers in this section analyze and discuss how gender is played out in relation to drug selling and dealing in specific cultural and social contexts and how both ethnicity and class are constructed and interwoven with gender within these contexts. While all three papers deal with empirical data from the United States, we would argue that the same kind of sensitive perspectives toward doing gender, class, and ethnicity and the relationships between them are applicable regardless of geographical location or economic system, can be utilized in research in other parts of the world in order to understand these processes better, and the need to understand the importance of these issues in research on alcohol and drugs. The papers also highlight how theories, including theories of intersectionality, currently being developed within other social science disciplines can further the study of gender in the field of drug and alcohol research.

GENDER, DRINKING, AND INTOXICATION

Alcohol use and intoxication have long been associated with men and masculinity. Across multiple settings and cultures, researchers have consistently found significant gender differences in drinking and intoxication prevalence rates, with men more likely than women to drink more often and in greater quantities. While some recent survey and epidemiological research suggest that a gender gap in alcohol consumption patterns is narrowing and a gender convergence in drinking and intoxication is occurring (Keyes, Grant, & Hasin, 2008; Keyes, Guohua, & Hasin, 2011; Kuntsche, Simons-Morton, & Bendtsen, 2011), many unanswered questions remain regarding the relationship between gender, alcohol use, and intoxication. Until very recently, there has been a relative underdevelopment of research about women and intoxication and especially around issues of intoxication and potential pleasure. Just as notions of pleasure in research on alcohol and drugs in general have been neglected, so also have notions of pleasure in research on women and intoxication. Against this background, two of the papers in this section explore women, drinking and intoxication in contrasting settings. While Enefalk examines women’s drinking in Sweden in the 19th and 20th centuries, Bailey et al. explore the contemporary situation for young women in the United Kingdom at a time when new cultures of intoxication operate.

Enefalk’s starting point is based on Sidsel Eriksen’s (1999) research. Eriksen, using historical material in Denmark, argued that the notion of women being “naturally” more sober than men is a historical construct used as a way of controlling men’s disruptive drinking. In pursuing this idea, Enefalk seeks to examine to what extent this idea is also true for Sweden. In addition to using state administrative documents and material from the temperance movement, she also explores a total of 14 diaries and diary-based memoirs written by women between 1850 and 1930. Unlike Eriksen, who relied totally on examples of upper-class women drinking, Enefalk explores the importance of class-related differences in women’s access to alcohol, noting the fact that “bourgeois women unlike their working-class sisters, have always consumed alcohol.” This easy ability to obtain alcohol contrasted with the position of farmers or workers whose access to alcohol tended to diminish during the 19th century as a result of the decline of home-made beverages and the emergence of an alcohol industry. Class differences existed not only in women’s differential access to alcohol but also in the differential ideologies surrounded drinking. Whereas drinking among elite women was viewed as unproblematic, drinking and intoxication among poor women was looked upon, by the social elites, with outrage and disgust. However, such condemnation of drunkenness among women appears, according to Enefalk, to have been a late development with little evidence of such condemnations prior to the 19th century. Nevertheless, women were meant never to show any visible effect from alcohol. By the latter part of the 19th century, developments within the middle class increasingly encouraged women to show “moderation” as a result of new moral imperatives. Demands on women to act according to dominant notions of femininity resulted in the pleasures of drinking, which increasingly became an anathema to ideals of femininity–women becoming intoxicated “was no longer fun, but disgusting.” Alcohol consumption, and especially heavy alcohol consumption, among women soon became associated with notions of “errant” or uncontrolled sexuality. As Enefalk notes, displays of physical pleasures by women were viewed with disgust, a perspective not uncommon today where the pleasures of women are often viewed as being “disreputable pleasures” (Ettorre, 2007). While notions of moderation, domesticity, and housewife ideals become dominant motifs for the middle class woman and were viewed as central if the woman was to gain a husband, the position for working class women was somewhat different and was tied to developments within the temperance movement and religious revivalism. For the bourgeoisie “religion seems to have co-existed quite comfortably with alcoholic beverages” whereas for working class women alcohol played “little role in their lives.” In fact, as Enefalk points out, temperance was in the interests of these women if they hoped to cover the costs of feeding their families and reducing unnecessary costs.

Concerns about women getting drunk have recently become a more prominent issue in a number of European countries and especially in the United Kingdom. In examining this situation, researchers have examined the new cultures of intoxication and the position of women within it. Bailey et al. highlight the extent to which young women today play a more active part in the new and widespread culture of extreme drinking. However, their participation within this culture places them in an “impossible dilemma” arising on the one hand from increasing pressures to drink excessively and on the other hand, as a result of “post-feminism” pressures to adopt a hyper-sexual form of femininity. Using data from 24 in-depth interviews, conducted in 2009–2010, with both working-class and middle-class women in the United Kingdom, Bailey et al. wish to explore the extent to which these new cultures of intoxication are influenced by class and race differences. They examine the extent to which notions of the “drunken and immoral chav” highlight the particularly derogatory representations of white working-class women. They also emphasize the extent to which gendered double standards remain at the heart of traditional discourses of femininity, where male drinkers’ views about women drinking are rife with ambiguity and disparagement. The dilemma for these young women is that while they wish to drink and even become intoxicated, they nevertheless wish to maintain a sense of femininity. In other words, they are obliged to negotiate femininity while managing elements of risk. Being invited to participate in post-feminist cultures of intoxication, they are nevertheless urged to show constraint and remain respectable–“an impossible space to occupy” (Griffin, Szmigin, Bengry-Howell, Hackley, & Mistral, 2013).

The final paper in this section by Harder and Demant, unlike the two previous papers, examines the issue of doing masculinity within the night-time economy. Using data as case studies from in-depth interviews with three young men, each of them interviewed twice, the authors examine gender within clubs by focusing on notions of embodiment and masculinity. They argue that while gender studies within the addiction literature have tended to focus on women, research on men and masculinity has been neglected. In reacting against what they refer to as “intoxication feminism,” they suggest developing an alternative perspective based on recent developments in psychoanalytical gender theory. They seek to view the club-goer as a more “risky” actor, who in the case of young men, risk the possibility of losing masculinity, losing sexual opportunities, and maybe even losing friends if their night out fails to achieve their intended goals. As Harder and Demant argue, “men have to work just as hard to achieve their gender… and are as much at risk of failing their gender assignment.” In exploring their respondents’ narratives, they examine the ways that using drugs initially allows them to act like real men and “let go of all their insecurities and plunge into the club space without any fear of losing their ideal of a potent male.” However, in deciding to forego drugs and instead only consuming alcohol, they discover that the “party rarely peaks like it used to.” Drinking on its own fails to put them in the right mood and they are subsequently less successful in their abilities to make contact with women. Without the drugs, to assist them to achieve their “gender assignment,” their former ability to “create and enjoy utopia is missing.”

Overall, the three papers in this section focus on the construction of femininities and masculinities. Al though all three papers are based on qualitative, individual accounts–in-depth interviews or diaries–they differ in their perspectives. The first two papers explore constructions of femininity and examine how class influences the meaning of femininity in different class settings in two historically contrasting contexts. In so doing, the authors highlight ways in which societal and cultural power structures impact constructions of femininity. The third paper focuses on notions of masculinity and specifically individual experiences of doing masculinity. These papers illustrate the possible different directions that exist within gender studies and potential tensions within gender studies as to whether constructions of gender are best analyzed within the context of socio-cultural power structures or whether gender should be explored through individual phenomenological experiences. Such tensions are explored further in the third section.

GENDER, POWER, DEVIANCE, AND DRUG USE

In the last section, three papers examine gendered power dynamics in women’s involvement in drugs. While the first two papers by Bjønness and Mayock et al. are based on ethnographic research and in-depth interviews, the final paper by Ettorre is primarily theoretical. Although gender hierarchies and power differentials are important aspects to examine in studies on gender and intoxicating substances, little survey or epidemiological research has considered these issues. In highlighting the importance of power, each of the three papers emphasizes different aspects. Bjønness examines the power relationships between drug using women and institutional views as ex pressed by treatment providers; Mayock et al. consider power relations within the intimate lives of young female heroin users, while Ettorre explores the ways in which dominant discourses contained in “disease regimes⁴ and epistemologies of ignorance” operate as powerful mechanisms controlling the lives of substance using women.

More specifically, Bjønness considers the triple stigmas faced by drug using women, who are sex workers, pregnant, and mothers. While a number of feminist researchers have shown how pregnancy and motherhood amplify the stigma of drug use, few have considered the situation of drug using mothers who are also sex workers.⁵ Following this line of research, Bjønness examines the experiences and practices of 34 drug using prostitutes in Denmark from 2001–2005 and the ways these women confront the institutional expectations and normative views about motherhood expressed by the staff within drug user treatment centers. The dominant norms within these centers are that drug-use, prostitution, and motherhood are totally incompatible. In confronting these norms, Bjønness shows not only what it is like for these women to live a life full of “stigma management” but also how they either oppose these institutional views or construct norm-conforming narratives. Following the work of Ettorre (2007), she highlights the “emotional labour” experienced by these women as their bodies are pressed into the service of the drug user treatment industry. They adopt both strategy of compliance with dominance and strategy of resistance. At the drop-in centers, the staff stigmatize the women by defining their “master status” (Becker, 1963) as either prostitutes or drug-addicts. She shows how their narratives around “motherhood” highlight these women’s attempts to act “responsibly” in taking control of their lives. Becoming pregnant was viewed as a possible new start and a way of turning “their life around.” In spite of these attempts, the women invariably lose custody over their children and attempt to explain this loss within their narratives. Even having lost custody, the women described their attempts to regain their parental rights and complained about the lack of institutional support for these attempts. Unfortunately, many of these women in their struggles with “being a mother” internalize institutional notions of stigma and define themselves as being “inadequate.”

Mayock et al., like Bjønness, use a mixture of ethno graphic fieldwork and in-depth interviews to examine not drug using prostitutes but the lives of young (18–29 years old) heroin users in Dublin. From a survey of 120 young people, they conducted in-depth life-history interviews with 40 young people during 2007–2009, paying particular attention to issues of gender and drug initiation and the interaction between their drug use, gender, and other sources of risk within their lives. More specifically, they consider the available theoretical approaches which view young female drug users as being either passive victims of male coercion or as being emancipated consumers seeking pleasure. In examining these approaches, they seek to question the dichotomous nature of these approaches and suggest instead a more nuanced picture of the ways in which young women become initiated into heroin use, emphasizing the meaning that they ascribe to their drug use, their role as heroin users, and their intimate relationships. They also highlight the importance of examining the interactional character of young women’s intimate relationships which belies their position as “victims.” The re spondents describe how their intimate relationships were important in their initiation into heroin use and how quickly these relationships became dominated by drug-related activities, specifically using and procuring. Within these narratives, these young women still portray themselves as active agents, even if they experience a “lack of autonomy.” However, in examining the micro-dimensions of young women’s lives, Mayock et al. also emphasize the importance of considering the effects of both macro- and meso-level factors, specifically poverty, trauma, violence, and family abuse, in shaping these young women’s perceptions of their intimate relationships. In so doing, Mayock et al. highlight the importance of contextualizing discussions of women’s agency in deciding whether young female drug users can be viewed as either passive victims of male coercion or emancipated consumers.

We complete the special issue with a theoretical paper by Ettorre. In having this paper at the end, we follow the order of the conference where Ettorre presented the final plenary presentation. We believe that this is fit ting as she raises many of the issues contained in the other eight papers and yet locates these issues within a more overall theoretical framework. Furthermore, we feel that ending with her paper is also appropriate, given the theoretical nature of Miller and Carbonne-Lopez’s opening paper. In developing feminist theory within the fields of drug and alcohol research, Ettorre aims to do three things: help create a society which is “difference centered;” cast doubt on normative beliefs shaped in both marginalized and privileged spaces; and finally make those who hold such normative beliefs uncomfortable. To do this, she argues for a feminist-embodied approach to drug users as “part of anti-oppressive theorizing,” with which to replace outdated ideas and subvert contemporary and pervasive disease regimes and epistemologies of ignorance. She suggests that we need to “interrogate the normative assumptions and practices surrounding women’s bodies.” In so doing, she emphasizes the extent to which the field is “woefully under-theorized.” Overall, she constructs an elaborate theoretical approach to the study of gender and drug use. She examines first how embodied deviance is defined in relation to women drug users through issues of restraint, reproduction, representation, and regulation, and second she introduces the concepts of disease regimes and epistemologies of ignorance as further conceptual tools for constructing her theory of embodiment. Finally, she explores the notion of emotions and encourages us to consider how embodied emotions can be an important resource for challenging “the disease regimes, governing mentalities and disciplinary framework of current drug policies.”

Overall, the three papers in this section take societal norms, values, and structures into account when analyzing women and drug use. While all the three papers focus on women, the same perspective could be applied in studying men, especially men at the margins. However, all three papers highlight the extent to which women, as a result of contemporary forces of social reproduction and male dominance, and the influences of relevant powerful stakeholders, are placed in structurally unequal positions from men. Research applying these kinds of sensitivities is presented in the three papers. While the first two explore these issues through empirical research about women drug users, both young and old, the final paper develops further the analytical tools by which to explore the social and cultural power settings and their gendered stakeholders within which women drug users attempt to operate as active agents.

Concluding Remarks

In selecting these nine papers, we hope to provide both an overview and a small sampling of the applicability of recent theoretical developments to the study of gender and substance use. While issues of gender are now becoming more prominent in the field of alohol and drug research, there nevertheless remain many contentious issues as well as a continuing tendency to focus on male consumption and ignore other significant gender issues. A recent and striking example of this occurred in the pages of the International Journal of Drug Policy, where a vigorous debate occurred on the publication of a paper on male drinking stories (Tutenges & Sandberg, 2013, 2014). Many of the subsequent commentaries (Bogren, 2014; Ettorre, 2014; Griffin, 2014; Radcliffe & Measham, 2014) questioned the authors’ un-gendered nature of their research findings. This recent example should remind us that gendered differences in substance use not only still remain a peripheral topic for many drug and alcohol researchers but also a heated topic for debate. The nine papers in this volume approach gender studies in different ways, from different social science disciplines from a number of countries and temporal periods, and using different theoretical perspectives in analyzing research data. While all papers acknowledge the importance of gender—whether that be focusing on either women or men or both—the methodological and analytical tools adopted may be significantly different. Some of our contributors have utilized historical archival data, some narrative data, some observational techniques, and some have examined the discourses contained in the “epistemologies of ignorance.” As noted at the start of this Introduction, our aim in producing this volume has been to provide the wider research community with a window on contemporary gender research in the field of alcohol and drug use(r) studies. We hope that this volume will succeed in doing that and subsequently inspire other researchers to focus more specifically on gender in future drug and alcohol use(r) studies, stimulate much needed cross-cultural dialogues, including gender-focused stakeholder research, thereby contributing to the increasingly prominent debates on gender within the field of academic research.

GLOSSARY

Chav

According to the Oxford English Dictionary the term Chav is a derogatory term referring to young working class male who behaves in a brash or loutish way and is portrayed as wearing real or imitation designer clothes

Doing gender

A conceptual framework that understands gender as produced in everyday interaction, rather than as a natural or innate set of characteristics within women and men

Embodied emotions

A term which accentuates that emotional experiences are shaped by our bodies and vice versa (i.e., emotions are a way of knowing as socially and culturally constructed as ineluctably tied to power relations and as fundamental ingredients of moral life).

Epistemologies of ignorance

The various ways that practices of knowledge production include the production of ignorance as well as the sustaining of not knowing

Intersectionality

A conceptual framework emerging initially from Black Feminist Thought in the United States, which investigates how individuals and groups occupy specific social positions within interrelated structures. Today it is used to examine how structural categories, such as gender, race, class, and sexuality, interact in producing and reproducing systematic inequalities

Life-course research

Life-course research is a dynamic framework for investigating how human development and behavior evolve across the lifespan, as a result of changing demands, opportunities, interests, circumstances, and events, embedded within structural, social, and cultural contexts. Criminologists focus specific attention to transitions and turning points in individuals’ lives that contribute to the onset, stability, and change in criminal behavior over time

Moral panics

The term refers to an extreme mass media-inspired concern that is perceived to threaten the moral condition of society. Sociologists, such as Jock Young and Stan Cohen, have argued that moral panics are the devices used to distract public attention from underlying social problems, thereby justifying increased social control over the working class and socially marginal groups

Biographies

Geoffrey Hunt, PhD, is a professor at the Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research at Aarhus University, Denmark, and senior scientist at the Institute for Scientific Analysis in San Francisco. Dr. Hunt is a social and cultural anthropologist, who has had 30 years of experience in planning, conducting, and managing research in the field of drugs, alcohol, and youth and Nightlife. In addition, Dr. Hunt has been involved in a number of large-scale comparative international projects on such issues as drugs and the nighttime economy and drug and alcohol treatment. He has published widely in the field of substance use studies in many of the leading sociology, anthropology, and criminology journals in the United States and the United Kingdom. He and colleagues have just published Youth Drugs and Nightlife (Routledge, 2010) and Drugs and Culture (Ashgate, 2011).

Vibeke Asmussen Frank, PhD, anthropologist, is the director of Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research, Aarhus University, Denmark, and associate professor in social science alcohol and drug research. Her research is mainly based on qualitative research. She has been involved in the management and conduction of a wide range of national and international research projects. Current projects focus on prison-based drug treatment, domestic cannabis cultivation, and implementation of policies in welfare institutions, including both control and welfare policies. She has written extensively within the field of social science alcohol and drug research, including editing several books. Her articles have appeared in scholarly books and journals, as for example, Addiction, Social Science and Medicine and International Journal of Drug Policy.

Molly Moloney, PhD, is a sociologist at the Institute for Scientific Analysis in California. Her research has focused on a number of subject areas, including masculinities, femininities, and parenthood among youth gang members; gender, sexuality, and ecstasy use in the rave scene; the regulatory environment and the changing nighttime economy; and Asian-American youth and young adult illicit drug use. What connects these different projects together is an emphasis on interpretive socio-cultural inquiry that is attentive to meaning, culture, and consumption and a focus on the intersections between identities (gender, sexual, and ethnic) and substance use.