Abstract
In South Africa, opiate drugs are not new but drug use and meanings have changed over time. Nyaope / heroin use, especially among youth, is in the twenty-first century widely viewed as a social problem. However, users themselves are also treated as the problem. Social studies on drugs are often focused on men and are concerned with identifying causes or factors that contribute to use. I am interested in heroin use within a perspective of township life around Johannesburg and on women using nyaope. My questions concern how do young women using nyaope make sense of their lives? How do they speak about their relationships in the family and community, and their identities as learners, daughters, mothers, and girlfriends, also around their access to nyaope, their activities to ensure supply, their attempts to get treatment and health care and their encounters with law enforcement? This dissertation uses a life histories approach as the main part of my investigation, and presents biographies of four women. These narratives are a way to explore drug use as a subjective practice, set in a particular historical time and place. Furthermore, I have used both the stories from my informants, and my own lived observations as a local resident, to narrate their experiences within the discourse of nyaope in the East Rand and Soweto townships. My own position, knowledge and understanding of this kind of drug were important to situate life stories.