Global Selves: Marginalised Young People and Aesthetic Reflexivity in Inhalant Drug Use

Abstract

Sociologists have observed that young people increasingly draw on global as well as local images in their constructions of individual selfhood. This article provides a narrative analysis of stories of inhalant use-induced hallucination, drawn from interviews conducted with young people in Melbourne, Australia. Young people's stories of the hallucinations they experience while using inhalants frequently reference the narratives, images and ontological preoccupations of contemporary popular culture; in particular, interactive electronic games. I argue that drug use provides a means by which some marginalised young people are able to integrate their constructions of selfhood within wider networks of power expressed through global popular culture, through mobilising what Scott Lash has referred to as an ‘aesthetic’ form of reflexivity. This occurs when they construct and narrate their hallucinations through four practices identified as central skills for engaging with contemporary texts: immersion, viewing the world as a hybrid technological self, re-imagining place and play on the borders of story worlds. The research highlights the need to develop drug-treatment interventions that will enable marginalised young people to fulfil—in less harmful ways—the imperative to be part of the globalising world.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the young people and workers who gave generously of their time and expertise. I wish to acknowledge also the following organisations for collaborating in the research: Youth Substance Abuse Service, DASWest, The Living Room and Hope Street Youth and Family Services. Johanna Wyn, John Fitzgerald, Deborah Warr and Kim Humphery offered constructive comments on drafts of this paper. Thoughtful comments made by two anonymous reviewers helped me clarify my argument. VicHealth and the Alcohol, Education and Rehabilitation Foundation provided financial support for the research on which this paper is based.