Drug Use and the Role of Homelessness in the Process of Marginalization

Abstract

The marginalization theory of life histories implies that drug users who are considered as marginalized manifest more serious social, economical, physical, and psychological problems than nonmarginalized drug users. The degree of marginalization is assumed to be an indicator of homelessness. The theory argues that homelessness is a stage in the life of a user that is associated with the loss of control of use. In this paper the effects of the dimensions of marginalization on homelessness are reported. The marginalization theory emerged from ethnographic fieldwork research among the drug users population in Parkstad Limburg, the Netherlands. Ethnographic fieldwork is often restricted to a (selective observed) part of the total population. To verify whether the marginalization theory was valid for the total unknown population, we used quantitative data obtained in 1999 by a two-mode network sample (n = 58). As a conclusion homelessness was more likely to be present among marginalized than nonmarginalized drug users.

• Homelessness
• Marginalization
• Drug use
• Qualitative and quantitative methods
• Drug scene
• Social deterioration
• Drift factor
• Hardness

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Moniek Coumans

Moniek Coumans graduated in 1996 in health sciences and epidemiological research. From 1996 to 1998 she was attached as a researcher to the Institute for Psycho-Social and Socio-Ecological research (IPSER)/University of Maastricht where she conducted a national cross-sectional study about intensity of care concerning (former) psychiatric patients in sheltered homes. Currently she is working on her Ph.D. as a researcher at Maastricht University.

Marinus Spreen

Marinus Spreen received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands (1999). During 1999–2001 he worked as researcher at the Department of Methodology and Statistics, University of Maastricht, where he published widely about statistical problems of network and snowball sampling of hard-to-reach populations. In 2001 he received a fellowship of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.