The Moral Economy of Heroin in ‘Austerity Britain’

Abstract

This article presents the findings of an ethnographic exploration of heroin use in a disadvantaged area of the United Kingdom. Drawing on developments in continental philosophy as well as debates around the nature of social exclusion in the late-modern west, the core claim made here is that the cultural systems of exchange and mutual support which have come to underpin heroin use in this locale-that, taken together, form a 'moral economy of heroin'-need to be understood as an exercise in reconstituting a meaningful social realm by, and specifically for, this highly marginalised group. The implications of this claim are discussed as they pertain to the fields of drug policy, addiction treatment, and critical criminological understandings of disenfranchised groups.

The material, moral, and affective worlds of dealing and crime among young men entrenched in an inner city drug scene

“…Consistent with previous work (Pitts, 2008), money and the things it bought – including drugs – were often a large part of what motivated youth to become involved in criminal activity. Also consistent with previous work (Bourgois, 1996; Wakeman, 2016), the world of dealing and crime did offer youth an alternative forum for dignity and individuation in the margins. However, we argue that in our setting these endeavors were not solely about economic survival, or even the accrual of highly meaningful forms of “street capital” in the margins (Harding, 2014; Sandberg, 2008; Sandberg & Pederson, 2009) – certainly not at the lowest levels, where status and wealth were fleeting at best.…”

“…In doing so, we build on and extend previous work highlighting how dealing, crime, and gangs embroil youth in complex material, moral, and experiential worlds that are governed by their own codes, boundaries, and meanings (Anderson, 1999; Bourgois, 1996; Ferrell, 2004; Hayward, 2007; Katz, 1988; Moyle & Coomber, 2015; Sandberg, 2008; Stevens, 2011; Wakeman, 2016). As James Densley and Alex Stevens (2014) have argued, youth themselves often recognized that these words do not exist in opposition to “mainstream” worlds of capitalist consumption, violence, and hedonism – rather, they are intimately related.…”

“…For a number of young men, a sense that they now have nothing left to do beyond “sitting around” in social housing on welfare – where they are safe, perhaps, from “risk,” but not from the structural violence of blank resumes, school incompletion, joblessness, and boredom – could generate significant anxiety. As Stephen Wakeman (2016) argues in his work with heroin user-dealers in “austerity Britain,” we need to ask ourselves serious questions about what youth are expected to do next , in the absence of meaningful opportunities for work, recreation, and relaxation. It is hardly surprising that, in our setting and others, young men often find themselves being drawn back into the rapid succession of risks and rewards that characterize street level dealing and crime as a way of mediating boredom, and achieving a sense of “being in the center of something” again.…”

“…These activities can be understood as a way into “pleasure, status and meaning” in the context of entrenched social, spatial, and economic marginalization, and chronic boredom (Stevens, 2011: 51; Ferrell, 2004; Hayward, 2007; Katz, 1988). They are often bound up with an elaborate “moral economy” of the streets, in which everyday sociability is facilitated through the exchange of goods, services, money, and subcontract illicit employment (in the form of dealing, as well as the violent “enforcement” of drug debts and turf, for example; Bourgois & Schonberg, 2009; Karandinos et al, 2014; Wakeman, 2016). …”

Mixing drink and drugs: ‘Underclass’ politics, the recovery agenda and the partial convergence of English alcohol and drugs policy

“…Wakeman (2015) demonstrates as much in his ethnographic study of heroin use and users in post-industrial northern England, but shows how some of the impacts of this conditionality are offset by the specific social bonds that exist between members of this particular disadvantaged group. That said, one potential consequence of these broader policy shifts is that some forms of treatment could be enforced on welfare recipients through conditionality.…”