Building inclusion, maintaining marginality: how social and health services act as capital for young substance users

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on Bourdieusian concepts to examine the social mechanisms driving service ‘choices’ for marginalised young substance users. In doing so, it problematises the individualised understandings of ‘choice-making’ common in the existing literature. The paper uses interview data collected from 26 young substance users to describe the resources they bring to their service encounters, the capitals that they acquire through these interactions, and the ways in which these are mobilised within the fields in which they operate. The analysis finds that services acted as capital-building settings – participants acquired material resources and opportunities for skill-building, and they built relationships that contributed to a positive sense of identity and belonging. But the exchange potentials attached to these capitals were restricted by the logics of service fields that cast them as deficit and limited their opportunities to build productive forms of social capital. By revealing the social mechanisms behind service ‘choices’, the analysis suggests that the most effective services are those that maximise the opportunities for their young clients to build ‘weak ties’, such as with a diverse range of adults who themselves possess resources, and those that acknowledge the identities that young people already possess as rational and self-managing.

KEYWORDS:

• Social capital
• cultural capital
• deficit
• substance use
• service choice

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the study participants for generously sharing their time and stories. The author also thanks Jake Rance, Rebecca Gray, Jeanne Ellard, Carla Treloar and John Howard who contributed in various ways to the development of this paper. The research team acknowledges the excellent contribution of the study’s Reference Group, who provided intellectual and practical insight about the study’s design, methods and findings. The study was funded by a grant from NSW Health. The Centre for Social Research in Health is supported by a grant from the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The study was funded by a grant from NSW Health. The Centre for Social Research in Health is supported by a grant from the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing.