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Virtual Ethnography: Managing Pharmacological Risk and Uncertainty in Online Drug Forums

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Researching Risk and Uncertainty

Part of the book series: Critical Studies in Risk and Uncertainty ((CRSTRU))

Abstract

The following contribution uses a study on the experimentation with new psychoactive substances (NPS) to illustrate digital ethnography. Located in the discipline of medical anthropology, the authors explore how risk and uncertainty are managed by organized communities of self-experimenters. The study aims to explore how their epistemology of pharmacological risks presents an alternative, yet highly organized, way to study these new chemicals and their interaction with humans. The methods include different forms of passive and active observation, and in-depth interviews, allowing the authors to penetrate a community of drug users and reflect their emic understandings. Understanding drug use in certain key populations can be of significant importance to understand phenomena like NPS in a way that exceeds public health research.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.

  2. 2.

    United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

  3. 3.

    Meaning an open-ended conversation or topic in an internet forum.

  4. 4.

    (https://www.academia.edu/7917466/The_Use_of_the_Concept_Global_South_in_Social_Science_and_Humanities).

  5. 5.

    An electronic image that represents and is manipulated by a computer user in a virtual space and is used to communicate with others.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR), University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Moritz Berning

  2. Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Anita Hardon

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  1. Moritz Berning
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  2. Anita Hardon
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Correspondence to Moritz Berning .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Risk and Crisis Research Centre, Mid Sweden University, Östersund, Sweden

    Anna Olofsson  & Jens O. Zinn  & 

  2. School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia

    Jens O. Zinn

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Berning, M., Hardon, A. (2019). Virtual Ethnography: Managing Pharmacological Risk and Uncertainty in Online Drug Forums. In: Olofsson, A., Zinn, J.O. (eds) Researching Risk and Uncertainty. Critical Studies in Risk and Uncertainty. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95852-1_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95852-1_4

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-95851-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-95852-1

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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