Fast Lives: Women Who Use Crack Cocaine
Providing insight into drug use from the point of view of female users, this book tells of the complex lives, challenges, and choices of women who use crack cocaine. While popular images of these women present them simply as unreliable individuals, unfit mothers, and women who will do almost anything for crack, Claire Sterk's years of ethnographic research reveal the nature and meaning of crack cocaine use in the larger context of their lives -- including the impact of such issues as gender, class, and race.

Focusing on active crack users, Fast Lives compiles information from participant observation, informal conversations, individual interviews, and group discussions. Sterk details the ways in which use affects the lives of these crack users. She  captures how these women arrived at their use; how they survive under current circumstances, such as the constant threat of HIV/AIDS and violence; how they combine the multiple social roles of mother and drug user; and how  -- as they share their aspirations and expectations for  the future -- their  stories underscore the effects of poverty, sexism, and racism on their lives.

Many of these women recognize their own responsibility for ensuring positive change. Sterk's book, which includes an argument for a harm reduction approach, reminds us that their strength and courage will too often be futile without social policies that are realistic and appropriate for women.

Fast Lives will engage readers interested in social problems as well as students of cultural anthropology, sociology, criminology, public health, ethnography, substance abuse, and women's health.
1122989548
Fast Lives: Women Who Use Crack Cocaine
Providing insight into drug use from the point of view of female users, this book tells of the complex lives, challenges, and choices of women who use crack cocaine. While popular images of these women present them simply as unreliable individuals, unfit mothers, and women who will do almost anything for crack, Claire Sterk's years of ethnographic research reveal the nature and meaning of crack cocaine use in the larger context of their lives -- including the impact of such issues as gender, class, and race.

Focusing on active crack users, Fast Lives compiles information from participant observation, informal conversations, individual interviews, and group discussions. Sterk details the ways in which use affects the lives of these crack users. She  captures how these women arrived at their use; how they survive under current circumstances, such as the constant threat of HIV/AIDS and violence; how they combine the multiple social roles of mother and drug user; and how  -- as they share their aspirations and expectations for  the future -- their  stories underscore the effects of poverty, sexism, and racism on their lives.

Many of these women recognize their own responsibility for ensuring positive change. Sterk's book, which includes an argument for a harm reduction approach, reminds us that their strength and courage will too often be futile without social policies that are realistic and appropriate for women.

Fast Lives will engage readers interested in social problems as well as students of cultural anthropology, sociology, criminology, public health, ethnography, substance abuse, and women's health.
23.99 In Stock
Fast Lives: Women Who Use Crack Cocaine

Fast Lives: Women Who Use Crack Cocaine

by Claire Sterk
Fast Lives: Women Who Use Crack Cocaine
Fast Lives: Women Who Use Crack Cocaine

Fast Lives: Women Who Use Crack Cocaine

by Claire Sterk

eBook

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Overview

Providing insight into drug use from the point of view of female users, this book tells of the complex lives, challenges, and choices of women who use crack cocaine. While popular images of these women present them simply as unreliable individuals, unfit mothers, and women who will do almost anything for crack, Claire Sterk's years of ethnographic research reveal the nature and meaning of crack cocaine use in the larger context of their lives -- including the impact of such issues as gender, class, and race.

Focusing on active crack users, Fast Lives compiles information from participant observation, informal conversations, individual interviews, and group discussions. Sterk details the ways in which use affects the lives of these crack users. She  captures how these women arrived at their use; how they survive under current circumstances, such as the constant threat of HIV/AIDS and violence; how they combine the multiple social roles of mother and drug user; and how  -- as they share their aspirations and expectations for  the future -- their  stories underscore the effects of poverty, sexism, and racism on their lives.

Many of these women recognize their own responsibility for ensuring positive change. Sterk's book, which includes an argument for a harm reduction approach, reminds us that their strength and courage will too often be futile without social policies that are realistic and appropriate for women.

Fast Lives will engage readers interested in social problems as well as students of cultural anthropology, sociology, criminology, public health, ethnography, substance abuse, and women's health.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781592138074
Publisher: Temple University Press
Publication date: 01/01/2011
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 256
File size: 552 KB

About the Author

Claire E. Sterk is Associate Professor of Public Health at Emory University.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1   Getting Into Drugs

2   Patterns of Income Generation and Drug Use

3   Significant Others: The Women's Steady Partners

4   Reproduction and Motherhood

5   Off and On: Experiences with Drug Treatment

6   Female Drug Users and the AIDS Epidemic

7   Violent Encounters

8   Past Experiences, Future Aspirations, and Policies

Notes

Bibliography

Index
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