‘I just want to be normal’: An analysis of discourses of normality among recovering heroin users
‘I just want to be normal’: An analysis of discourses of normality among recovering heroin users
复制标题
“我只想变得正常”：海洛因吸毒者康复中的正常话语分析
DOI：
10.1177/1363459312451182
复制
发表时间：
2013
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Lucy Pickering
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
S. Nettleton;J. Neale;Lucy Pickering
一项研究探索了戒除海洛因成瘾的男性和女性的生活，据报道，吸毒者经常声称他们只想变得正常。在福柯学派的传统下，我们在这篇文章中认为，“政府心态”和“规范”的概念特别适合于理解这种愿望的普遍性。在这里，我们重点不是鼓励个人遵守社会、文化和政治规范的正式治理机构，而是寻求探索恢复用户对正常状态的描述，因为它们是被设想和表达的。报道的经验数据来自对英国40名处于海洛因戒除不同阶段的男性和女性的采访。分析的重点是在访谈过程中阐述对正常的描述，以确定参与者展示正常的方式。为了与话语分析的方法论传统保持一致，我们确定了六个超越叙述的“正常谈话”话语剧目。结论是，常态的谈判对于这个社会群体来说是一条不稳定的道路。表达对正常的渴望充满了紧张；既有抵抗的表现，也有听天由命的表现。尽管当代一些社会理论家声称多样性是“新常态”，但对于那些吸食海洛因上瘾的人来说，“差异”的接受范围是有限的。
Research that has explored the lives of men and women recovering from heroin addiction has reported that users often claim that they ‘just want to be normal’. Working within a Foucauldian tradition, we argue in this article that the notions of ‘governmentality’ and the ‘norm’ are especially apposite to understanding the ubiquity of this aspiration. Here we focus not on the formal institutions of governance that encourage individuals to adhere to social, cultural and political norms, but rather seek to explore recovering users’ accounts of normality as they are envisaged and expressed. The reported empirical data were generated from interviews with 40 men and women in England at various stages of recovery from heroin use. The analytic focus is upon the accounts of normality articulated during the interviews in order to identify the ways in which being normal is presented by the participants. In keeping with the methodological tradition of discourse analysis we identify six discursive repertoires of ‘normality talk’ that transcend the accounts. It is concluded that the negotiation of normality is a precarious route for this social group. Articulations of a desire to be normal are replete with tensions; there are expressions of both resistance and resignation. Despite claims by some contemporary social theorists that diversity is the ‘new normality’, the accepted bounds of ‘difference’ are limited for those who have been addicted to heroin.