Beyond "subculture" in the ethnography of illicit drug use.

One issue that has drawn out interested drug ethnographers is by what mode to conceptualize the social relations and forms of cultural knowledge squeeze outed through, and constructed by, medicine use. In addressing this issue, they have typically resorted to the conceptual and methodological tool of "subculture" (or related boundarys such as "social world," "small world" or "social type") making important contributions to the unfolding of urban anthropology and sociology more generally. The argument of this article, however, is that the general [i]or[/i] abstract notion of subculture, with its emphasis upon normative values, beliefs and practices, is inadequate for analyzing the heterogeneity of a certain quantity of drug-using groups and ...