Open AccessAlcohol and the Identity-Building Experience: The Biographical Interview
Author(s) -
Maxim Kotelnikov
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
inter/interakciâ. intervʹû. interpretaciâ
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2687-0401
pISSN - 2307-2075
DOI - 10.19181/inter.2021.13.3.6
Subject(s) - conceptualization , context (archaeology) , identity (music) , alcohol consumption , object (grammar) , everyday life , psychology , social psychology , mode (computer interface) , consumption (sociology) , task (project management) , sociology , epistemology , alcohol , aesthetics , computer science , artificial intelligence , history , social science , engineering , philosophy , biochemistry , chemistry , archaeology , systems engineering , operating system
Within the framework of this paper, the author examines individual drinking "strategies" and their relationship with the social context. To accomplish this task, the author turns to the concept of ‘modes of engagement’ by Laurent Thévenot. On the base of an in-depth interview, the author identifies three stages of alcohol consumption that the informant went through: 1) adolescence, which can be described as a "game", the essence of which boils down to hiding the fact of drinking alcohol from the parents; 2) the student period (life in a dormitory), when the strategy of consumption can be described as the ‘discovery mode’ according to Thévenot, a distinctive feature of which is the search for something new; 3) the present (living alone), which is characterized by a non-reflective routine use of alcohol. Such a strategy is brought in accordance with Thévenot’s "mode of intimacy", which is characterized by an increase in the importance of an object (in this case, alcohol); however, at the same time, the actor loses the opportunity to reflect on his relationship with the object, due to the fact that it becomes a part of his “unquestioned” everyday life. The article also examines the models of conceptualization of alcohol and alcoholism, used by the informant herself.