Identity and the Social Construction of Risk: Injecting Drug Use

The links between risk‐taking, identity and social context were examined in interviews with 20 young injecting drug users. Young men proclaimed accounts of identity either as ‘recreational users’ with the heroic personal characteristics to control their drug use, or as ‘junkies’ with traits of sensual hedonism leading inevitably to ever‐increasing drug use. Young women’s accounts were of themselves as ‘junkies’ driven to drug use by psychological pain and addictive personality. Drawing upon individualised explanations of behaviour, these discourses of self identity could nevertheless be seen to be linked to specific social practices: recreational users reported solidarities to maintain low drug use whereas the social scene of ‘junkies’ was not organised around such solidarities. Those who oscillated between recreational use and habitual use had moved across these different social contexts. Theories and practical strategies for harm minimisation, which recognise these relationships between self‐identity, social context and behaviour, are called for.