This PhD-project is an ethnographic exploration of the experiences of violence among people who use drugs and who live in homelessness and marginalization. The study also explores possibilities and challenges concerning prevention of violence at shelter areas for marginalized people who use drugs.

The study

Marginalized people who use drugs are much more likely to be exposed to physical and psychological violence than the general population. This is apparent in regular surveys carried out on the health status among the Danish population since 2007. The notion that violence is unevenly distributed in societies is supported by international research, which shows that structurally vulnerable people are more exposed to violence than the rest of the population. For instance, research literature on marginalized environments with people who use drugs has found that violence is a frequent part of the illegal drug economy, that violence is rarely reported and that formal protection is often absent. Furthermore, the individuals’ possibilities of creating personal security and avoiding situations where they end up as victims of violence is often limited to either engaging in violent action or seeking protection by other marginalized people.

The aim of this project is to examine

• social and situational dynamics associated with the prevalence of violence among marginalized people who use drugs and
• how violence is ascribed meaning and morally evaluated by people who use drugs and by social workers at social housing services.

Thus, the research project generates further knowledge about when and how violence among marginalized people who use drugs occurs, is experienced and avoided.

Analytically, the project will use three overlapping theoretical foci: Violence as lived experience in everyday situations, as a narrative practice that forms the very experience of violence and as a negative potentiality affecting people’s actions.

Data is collected through ethnographic fieldwork that consists of (participant) observations from 2022-2023 in a shelter area in a bigger city in Denmark and in-depth qualitative interviews with people who use drugs and with employees at the shelter. Further, the data will include relevant policy and institutional documents.

Project period

October 2021 to June 2025.

Funding

The PhD project is funded by the BSS Graduate School, Aarhus University.