Samenvatting
This research aims to collaboratively study how individuals experience and express meaning-making of their living experiences of participation in the MSM chemsex scene. In doing so, it responds to the dominant risk paradigm and binary view through which chemsex experiences are generally studied.Meaning-making processes are conceptualized through the theoretical lens of life-viewing (Alma, 2019) and the eight meaning-making ingredients (Derkx, 2011). Inspired by understanding the chemsex phenomenon as a scene (Drysdale, 2021), this research follows an inclusive design (Nind, 2017). Consequently, to integrate the inside perspective and experiential knowledge, two panels participated in every phase of the research: firstly, a panel of individuals with living experiences in the scene and, secondly, a panel of care providers working in the scene.
The co-created results provide insights into individuals' varied living experiences through narrative portraits. Meaning-making ingredients were used to analyze seven in-depth interviews. This revealed thematic insights through the ingredients of coherent life narrative, understandable world, and transcendence, and a non-binary spectrum of experiences through the ingredients of self-efficacy, self-confidence, and connection. The additional inquiry into the role of masculinity in the scene supports the latter. Finally, a collaborative poetic inquiry into metaphors sheds light on the role of desire and instinct in the scene.
Following the repetitive qualities of the co-created results, such as non-essentialist, fluid, non-binary, and messy, life-viewing in the scene is characterized as kaleidoscopic, meaning quickly changing from one thing to another. This way, the narration of paradoxical and fluid living experiences can be kept intact.
| Datum prijs | 24 apr. 2024 |
|---|---|
| Originele taal | English |
| Begeleider | Alice P. Schippers (Supervisor) & Laurens ten Kate (Supervisor) |