The Trouble with “Outsiders”

Abstract

<p>Becker’s <em>Outsiders</em> (1963) remains relevant more than half a century later in understanding contemporary drug use and cultures. Contemporary research continues to show that persons who use drugs have common connections in their experiences with drugs - deriving pleasure, developing rituals, establishing patterns and boundaries, navigating risks and consequences, and recognition of membership in a distinct group and culture. Social interaction is embedded in theoretical understandings of contemporary drug use. Research also shows that some types and of drug use have become normalized, acquiring medical and legal status in some locales. Given this continuity and change, our objective is to revisit the “outsider” – to trouble what it really means for a person using drugs to be an “outsider.”</p><p>Some forms of drug use remain outside the “new normal,” and questions emerge about the differentiations within a deviant culture, with some individuals or groups marginalized within the larger “outsider community.” The task is to understand “outsiders” in light of the heterogeneity of drug, set and setting today. How might we build on Becker’s formulation to explain “outsider” positionings of different groups who use drugs from within the community of those who use drugs? How does one become an outsider from within and with what consequences? For Becker, the “outsider” status was largely from the “conventional other,” but we raise the possibility that there are differentiations within the “outsider” culture and are associated with differential experiences in use and consequences. We describe Becker’s ideas about “outsiders,” and our vision for moving “outsiders” into new terrain. Drawing on three distinct groups of persons who use drugs in Hong Kong, we argue that “outsiders from within” develop self-awareness of their marginality from within the outsider and broader communities, and this necessarily impacts their navigation in using and obtaining drugs and accessing treatment services.<br></p>