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Injecting ineffably: a qualitative study of homelessness, communication, and injection drug use in Denver, Colorado

Date

2011

Authors

Conner, Christopher N., author
Dickinson, Greg, advisor
Aoki, Eric, advisor
MacDonald, Bradley, committee member

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Abstract

This study provides qualitative analysis of intra- and intergroup communication dynamics between injection drug users experiencing homelessness and people who do not inject. The analysis is grounded in Classical categories of techne and phronesis with expressive modes of mimetic and diegetic learning. Analysis also considers functional uses of public secrecy in discourses about injection drug use and secrecy's effects on social appropriations of phronesis, techne, and subjective identity with injection. This study presents five unique case studies of interviews with injection drug users experiencing homelessness in Denver, Colorado to discuss how themes of injection drug use are experienced, and/or communicated at the street level. Particular attention is directed to themes of initiation to injection drug use. This study is informed by a harm reduction curriculum set forth by the Break the Cycle program and the Harm Reduction Action Center in Denver, Colorado.

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Subject

harm reduction
communication
heroin
initiation
injection drug use
secrecy

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