RT Article
T1 Bourdieu on supply: utilizing the ‘theory of practice’ to understand complexity and culpability in heroin and crack cocaine user-dealing
JF European journal of criminology
VO 14
IS 3
SP 309
OP 328
A1 Moyle, Leah
A2 Coomber, Ross
LA English
YR 2017
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1578467012
AB 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.
K1 Bourdieu
K1 Drug dealing
K1 Drug supply
K1 Habitus
K1 Capital
K1 Field
DO 10.1177/1477370816652916