Bourdieu on supply: utilizing the ‘theory of practice’ to understand complexity and culpability in heroin and crack cocaine user-dealing

The act of user-dealing has largely been explored within criminology in conjunction with the ‘drug–crime’ link or with a focus on ethnography and subculture. Whereas it is known that many users of drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine engage in small-scale supply as a way of generating revenue, les...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Moyle, Leah (Author) ; Coomber, Ross (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2017
In: European journal of criminology
Year: 2017, Volume: 14, Issue: 3, Pages: 309-328
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
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Summary:The act of user-dealing has largely been explored within criminology in conjunction with the ‘drug–crime’ link or with a focus on ethnography and subculture. Whereas it is known that many users of drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine engage in small-scale supply as a way of generating revenue, less is known about the particular interplay of social context and choice that leads them to pick this income-generating activity over other potential options. Contributing to a burgeoning literature, this article explores the constrained choices of user-dealers with reference to Bourdieu’s ‘theory of practice’ (1977). Through locating stories of failure in user-dealer narratives, we utilize this novel approach in criminology, illuminating the importance of working with all of the interrelated concepts of habitus, field and capital in appreciating user-dealing as ‘practice’. It is argued that application of this framework affords the previously unharnessed opportunity to use Bourdieusian theory to understand notions of culpability when sentencing this group.
ISSN:1741-2609
DOI:10.1177/1477370816652916