Resisting Violence: The Construction of Tactics Among Thai Women Who Inject Drugs

This study examines the range of tactics used by Thai women who inject drugs in their attempts to lessen the impact of gendered structural violence. Participant observation and in-depth interviews with 35 Thai women who inject drugs were conducted. The women’s tactics to cope with structural violence included leaving home, adopting masculine traits, engaging in various forms of work, and having a drug partner. These tactics are a means of balancing gender and drug use, which are complicated by living under the threat of violence, aspects of embodied experiences that are trapped in powerful conventional roles of masculinity and femininity