Spatial 'folds': The entwining of bodies, risks and city spaces for women injecting drug users in Melbourne's Central Business District

Abstract

How do street-based injecting drug using women negotiate the myriad day to day risks of injecting in public urban space whilst, at the same time, negotiate the gendered discourses surrounding space and drug use, which work to both limit their bodily movements and position them as 'dirty', 'diseased' and 'dangerous'? How do they avoid overdose, violence, arrest and disease, whilst at the same time avoid becoming - and being treated as - a 'leper' or 'junkie'? In this article we draw on the interview narratives of 14 women who regularly inject in various public city spaces in Melbourne, Australia, in order to explore their negotiations of this complex gender/space/drug-use nexus of risk. Using..