Exploring the lived experience of the ritualistic consumption of substances and spatial bodily practices among users and former users in the society of Kamrup Metro.
Description
The interviews revealed five primary themes that provide a thorough insight into real-life experiences of users and former users who consume drugs through ritualistic or cultural patterns. In order to maintain authenticity to the participant’s perspectives and make the information comprehensible to non-native speakers, the colloquial language is translated into English and has provided the participant’s experiences, memories, and the use of colloquial language, which all convey complex meaning in the context. Findings The narratives of the users and former users reveal a profound reflection on how consumption of substances has been transmitting since ages ago and till today through generational ritualistic lore. There is a depiction of a person, who is a cultural torchbearer or path shower who introduced drugs to the group. The person also shares the techniques and materials associated with ritualistic consumption. They seem too easy-going, while sharing their excitement of substance consumption. They shared participants shared about the introduction of a new drug to them by a friend or peer group. The peer has always used the excuse of depicting the new drugs as a better option. The notion of special occasion or a special place or a special item, has ignited the occurrence of substance consumption. A pattern of prevalence already occurring in the society of their own. Every one of the participants has learnt a new behaviour from the easy permissiveness of the society. The narratives reflect an influence of Western sub-cultural lore. It depict some vivid sub-cultural methods of consumption of various drugs and no resistance could be seen among the participants while consuming new drugs. They felt excited and joyous to re-use their prior substances, but with time, the users fell remorseful for not getting rid of the substance and the former users feel grateful that they are no longer are in contact with that specific drug they used. Analysis In order to analyse the data and obtain a comprehensive understanding, the analysis began with familiarisation through repeated reading. Next, the data was coded, which involves identifying and labelling significant meaningful segments. Finally, related codes were organised into preliminary themes, which underwent further refinement and were arranged into more general superordinate groups. The process came to an end at the integration stage, when connections between instances were synthesised into logical results via ongoing review and improvement (Smith et al. 2009). Thus, IPA (Smith et al. 2009), which is theoretically based in phenomenology, hermeneutics and ideography, served as the basis of analysis for this study. In order to link specific lived experiences, the results were further evaluated with more comprehensive sociological understanding of the notion of perceived space (Lefebvre 1991), which draw meanings of drugs consumption patterns, in Indian culture.
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To comprehend the lived experiences of users and former users who are associated with the ritualistic and cultural consumption, the researcher used interpretative phenomenology, a qualitative approach that combines questioning and empathic hermeneutics to investigate the subjective meanings that people attach to important events or circumstances in their lives by not only describing what happened but also by comprehending how they interpret and experience it within their personal and social world (Smith 2016). The Heideggerian philosophy, which emphasises ideas like authenticity and ‘Dasein’ (lived experiences) (Frechette et al. 2020), forms the foundations of this approach. Research methodology The researcher disclosed the research questions to the participants and only conducted the interviews after obtaining their prior written or verbal agreement, and all names were substituted by pseudonyms to preserve participants’ identities and maintain confidentiality. The study was carried out near temples, de-addiction centres, and colleges in Assam’s Kamrup Metro district. As interviewees are difficult to find in a normal social setting without proper rapport building, making temples, de-addiction centres and colleges a reliable and feasible setting to reach the target population. The researcher employed case studies and interview guides to conduct the interviews, which typically lasted between sixty to ninety minutes. The interviews included open-ended questions that were carved through the assessment of pertinent literature that served as the basis to form the questionnaire. Sample and data collection Twelve people between the ages of 14-55 made up the sample, two of the twelve participants were married, and ten were unmarried and living with their parents. Eight of the twelve participants were from the urban area itself, while four others came to the urban area for educational/job purposes. With the formal gathering of informed consent from both users and former users, case studies and in-depth interviews were undertaken to acquire a comprehensive understanding of their experiences. Each interview lasted an average of 60-90 minutes. Analysis The analysis began with familiarisation through repeated reading. Next, the data was coded, which involves identifying and labelling significant meaningful segments. Finally, related codes were organised into preliminary themes, which underwent further refinement and were arranged into more general superordinate groups. The process came to an end at the integration stage, when connections between instances were synthesised into logical results via ongoing review and improvement (Smith et al. 2009), And in order to link specific lived experiences, the results were further evaluated with more comprehensive sociological understanding of the notion of perceived space (Lefebvre 1991), which draw meanings of drugs consumption patterns, in Indian culture.
Institutions
- Gauhati UniversityAssam, Guwahati