The Role of Ethnicity in a Local Drug Dealer Network

This article analyses the role of ethnicity in a heroin dealer and consumer network of young men of Chilean descent in Norrköping, Sweden. At the end of the 1990s the young men became involved in the network through contact with a large‐scale dealer who was also of Chilean descent. They worked as street dealers for the top dealer; many of them also began using heroin and eventually developed an addiction. Through over 100 qualitative interviews with 17 of these young men, the article examines identity construction and the competencies they developed on the street that facilitated their eventual work as dealers, as well as the social relations and contacts within the dealer network that played a role in their becoming dealers and users. The findings reveal that due to their perceived experience of being subordinated in society, they became involved in heroin as a means of gaining self‐respect, dignity, and wealth. Arriving at a view of ethnicity as something that is constructed rather than fixed and intrinsic, the findings point to how ethnicity, through the young men's development of and participation in the street culture, merges with aspects of identity including social class and gender, as well as with aspects of ethnicities from other parts of the world. On the whole, the findings suggest that ethnicity as a concept of analysis within drug cultures is less fruitful when separated from other aspects of identity, such as social class and gender.