Juvenile and drugs: fascination of contesting identites

The article focuses on the self-conceptions of a juvenile who uses drugs. Different dimensions of categories and connotations are analyzed in an interview given by a young girl who has used hard drugs for several years. The analysis aims at making clear the spectrum of culturally given resources that are available for a young person with a drug history when she attempts to make her life understandable. By concentrating on one young person's story, the analysis illustrates that a variation of self-conceptions is not about differences between individuals, but is more about the general cultural alternatives of different categories. The variation of self-conceptions is abstracted into four alternative identity types that associate with very different attributes and activity types. The analysis demonstrates how a young person with a drug history both applies the attributes of generally known categories and takes distance from these depending on the identity type. Based on the analysis of these four identities, some conclusions are drawn about the possibilities of parents or other adults to support the identity constructions of a juvenile with a drug history.