An ethnographic study of recreational drug use and identity management among a network of electronic dance music enthusiasts in Perth, Western Australia - PhD Project

This thesis examines recreational use of amphetamine-type stimulants among young adults located in two discrete social fields in Perth: the ‘mainstream’ and a local electronic music ‘scene’. Using ethnographic methods and analysis, it interrogates how micro-level processes of identity management produced tensions in drug practice that were continually negotiated. The thesis argues that understandings and enactments of ‘normal’ drug use among young adults are more nuanced and unstable than has been depicted in the literature