Entangled in Big Events: Rise of Heroin Use Among Children of Ex-Gurkhas in Hong Kong

Big event models have been developed to demonstrate the relationships between wars and socioeconomic political transitions, and between rise of drug use and HIV epidemic outbreaks. This ethnographic interview-based study of a Nepali, Hong Kong community, carried out between 2009 and 2011, explored increased heroin use among the children of Hong Kong's Nepali ex-Gurkhas since its political transition in 1997. Data from its 59 informants were coded and analyzed using the grounded-theory approach. Three derived themes influencing drug use among ex-Gurkha children were identified: (1) reorganization of social networks, (2) redefinition of social norms, and (3) renegotiation of self-identity. Their associated processes crossed the boundaries of time and space. These findings document that big event modeling variables can and do overlap, are interconnected in many different ways, and their relationships are dialectical and are culturally shaped even as individuals may and do influence these processes and outcomes. Study's limitations are noted.