Stories told and untold: a narrative ethnography of a hidden population of women who use drugs in Scotland
Creators: name: Hammond, Karen
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024

description: Women who use illicit drugs can be a particularly hidden and ‘invisible’ group in society, given that they experience greater levels of stigma and discrimination than their male counterparts (Simpson and McNulty, 2008). There is particular lack of representation of women who are not in contact with treatment agencies or the criminal justice system (McPhee, 2013). In this narrative ethnography (Gubrium and Holstein, 2008), I address this significant gap in the literature, using snowball sampling methods (Woodley and Lockard, 2016) to identify and recruit 20 women with experience of illicit drug use. It has been suggested (Marechal, 2009) that ‘marginal intellectuals’ who tap their ‘outsider within status’ can offer an alternative perspective. Through the use of auto-ethnographic vignettes, I make links between my life history and the research focus, utilising my own multiple marginality as a research tool in accessing and engaging women who use drugs. Trust is especially vital to the success of hidden population research and through reflexive writing I render visible the series of challenges encountered in the recruitment process. Guided by a feminist sensibility (Ettorre, 2017), the demonstrative empathy narrative interview method (DENIM) was developed to address the power dynamic inherent in interviews with marginalised populations. DENIM is an informal approach to interviewing which considers seriously the social context, positionality androle of the researcher in co-constructing meaning, in particular the desire for social acceptability (Holloway and Jefferson, 2008: Esin et al, 2013).The analytic approach adopted for this study views narratives as forms of social code - the making of meaning - and stories as socially and dialogically constructed (Bakhtin, 1981: Frank, 2010: Sullivan, 2012). Dialogical narrative analysis of ambiguity highlights the inherent complexity of the women’s identity work. Drawing inspiration from Belotti (2016), significant relationships are located within the concentric circles of trust. These insider/outsider narratives are implicated in group boundary maintenance.Seven small stories are presented (Smith, 2016) and these function to retrieve and restore control and self-empowerment, to command respect and authority and to rework and locate cultural narratives of risk. I argue that this cohort of socially included women have access to narrative resources which allow them to perform relatively socially acceptable identities in order to manage stigma. Adopting subject positions that give a sense of being an acceptable human being often results in a reproduction of the social structure (Esin et al 2014). Women’s accounts of drug use thus shape and are shaped by the surrounding culture of stigma, shame and prohibition.Ettorre (2017) suggests that gender sensitive harm reduction might be achieved through paying attention to the neglected arena of embodiment. Forming a dialogical perspective of women’s drug talk, I suggestthe concept of narrative habitus (Frank, 2010: 2012), which links women’s narrative identity work with the body and social networks. A renewed focus on storytelling, particularly how stories are circulated and embodied, has much to add to the understanding the interplay between structure and agency in the lives of women who use drugs (Fleetwood, 2016).In closing, I argue that future research might employ the ‘circles of trust’ as a tool for narrative elicitation and a model for the social networks in which hidden populations of women who use drugs are embedded. In terms of methodological advancement, the use of DENIM will assist in enhancing engagement with particularly stigmatised segments of the population, such as opioid using parents.