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Full Text Available
Open Access / OK to Reproduce
Peer Reviewed
Objective
This qualitative study investigated strategies of within-group categorization and differentiation among PWUD and the roles these social categories may play in shaping intragroup attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors.
Findings/Key points
We identified seven social categories that were commonly appraised by participants along eight evaluative dimensions. Categories included drug of choice, route of administration, method of attainment, gender, age, genesis of use, and recovery approach. Categories were evaluated by participants based on ascribed characteristics of morality, destructiveness, aversiveness, control, functionality, victimhood, recklessness, and determination. Participants performed nuanced identity work during interviews, including reifying social categories, defining ‘addict’ prototypicality, reflexively comparing self to other, and disidentifying from the PWUD supra-category.
Design/methods
In-depth interviews with people who reported using opioids or injecting any drug (n=355).
