Background
Vancouver’s Downtown
Eastside is home to Canada’s largest street-based drug scene and only
supervised injection facility (Insite). High levels of violence among men and
women have been documented in this neighbourhood. This study was undertaken to
explore the role of violence in shaping the socio-spatial relations of women
and ‘marginal men’ (i.e., those occupying subordinate positions within the drug
scene) in the Downtown Eastside, including access to Insite.
Methods
Semi-structured qualitative
interviews were conducted with 23 people who inject drugs (PWID) recruited
through the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, a local drug user
organization. Interviews included a mapping exercise. Interview transcripts and
maps were analyzed thematically, with an emphasis on how gendered violence
shaped participants’ spatial practices.
Results
Hegemonic forms of
masculinity operating within the Downtown Eastside framed the everyday violence
experienced by women and marginal men. This violence shaped the spatial practices
of women and marginal men, in that they avoided drug scene milieus where they
had experienced violence or that they perceived to be dangerous. Some men
linked their spatial restrictions to the perceived 'dope quality' of
neighbourhood drug dealers to maintain claims to dominant masculinities while
enacting spatial strategies to promote safety. Environmental supports provided
by health and social care agencies were critical in enabling women and marginal
men to negotiate place and survival within the context of drug scene violence.
Access to Insite did not motivate participants to enter into “dangerous” drug
scene milieus but they did venture into these areas if necessary to obtain
drugs or generate income.
Conclusion
Gendered violence is
critical in restricting the geographies of men and marginal men within the
street-based drug scene. There is a need to scale up existing environmental
interventions, including supervised injection services, to minimize violence
and potential drug-related risks among these highly-vulnerable PWID.
...Women commonly spoke of the additional risks of violent
sexual assault. For example, one woman in her late twenties who engaged daily
in outdoor sex work noted:
I’ll smoke [crack cocaine] in the alley and I
hate it…It’s scary. Anybody could walk up behind you with something and beat
you and try to rob you ‘cause they want your drugs. It’s just scary…I’ve been
raped [in an alleyway].
Gendered violence was understood to be a natural consequence
of drug scene involvement, and thus operated as a form of symbolic violence.
Many participants expressed that this normalized, gendered violence was most
evident in the expectation that dominant men would seek to control the money
and drugs or labour (e.g., contexts in which they exchanged sex) of women and
marginal men. For example, as one older man noted during his interview:
The girls make the money [through involvement in sex
work]. Guys know they got the money. The guys don’t make money, and that
way they have to beg, borrow or steal in between cheques…So, of course they [women] are
going to be manipulated…These guys, you know, [are] muscling them or doing
anything to get what they’ve got [i.e., drugs or money]...
Full article at:
1BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS,
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
2Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia Canada
3Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
4
2Department of Medicine, University of
British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia Canada
3Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users,
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
4Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser
University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
