Hustlers in Drug-Related Aids Prevention: Ethnographers, Outreach Workers, Injection Drug Users

Abstract

The research literature is replete with discussions of ethnography as a methodology involving deception, especially in the conduct of participant observation. When such research involves forging trusting relationships with active drug users-who develop many skills in deception during their ‘careers in dope’-deception may be used as much by, subjects in dealing with researchers as it is used by researchers in dealing with subjects. The element of deception increases further in ethnographic studies of AIDS prevention efforts for injection drug users (IDUs). Here ethnographers work to forge trusting relationships with outreach workers, who have been hired by prevention projects to forge trusting relationships with IDUs in the community to help protect themselves from HIV. In this paper, I discuss some deceptions basic to participant observation in virtually all social settings, with examples taken from my research of outreach workers and their dealings with IDUs in working to combat HIV. I then discuss some common deceptions run by outreach workers against the projects in which they work, and in their dealings with ethnographers.

Key Words:

• Ethnography
• HIV/AIDS
• injection drug use