Navet : An Ethnographic Approach to an Open Drug Market

Abstract: Aims - This thesis describes an open drug market and its suspected drug users in a Swedish city. This drug market is located at the local bus hub called Navet, in the city of Sundsvall, which has a reputation of being a place to avoid because of the substance abuse and accompanied crime. The aim was to disclose what happens at Navet that is associated with drug related activities. Method - two observers visited Navet from November 2016 to March 2017 at different times of the day with an ethnographic approach to take notes of the daily life at Navet, using their own experiences as basis for the description and analysis. No interactions with the actors at Navet were initiated by the observers. Results - Navet is more than just adrug market, it also provides a meaningful social aspect for the actors by spending time at Navet granting a feeling of belonging to a group. Four different groups of people were identified, the traveling citizens using Navet for transportation, people using navet as their meeting place without taking part of the drug activities, the suspected drug users and the young suspected drug users. The most frequent and openly used substances was alcohol followed by unspecified pills, other types of illegal substances were suspected to be common at Navet but never witnessed to be consumed. Conclusion - As rumored, Navet is a place where drugs and suspected drug users are present during almost all hours of the day. However, the generally perceived feeling of hostility and danger is exaggerated, contributing to a worse reputation of Navet compared to what can be supported through this study.