The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

This presentation provides an overview of an anthropological approach to the study of social contexts and smoking. I will consider factors that contribute to smoking being seen as normative in particular social environments, especially when the smoker is engaged in specific social activities and consumption events. Rather than discussing smoking as an isolated behavior, the discussion will situate smoking as part of a package of behaviors. Attention will be paid to the social utility functions of smoking as a means of initiating interaction with others and facilitating reciprocal exchange. In addition, smoking will be discussed as a resource for the negotiation of identity. The extent to which smoking serves as an idiom for communicating emotive states and for modulating one's emotions will also be explored. The conceptual lens of space and place which has been productively applied in the fields of anthropology and geography will be utilized as a means of studying the social interactional dimensions of space and time. Examples will be drawn from ethnographic research conducted in the U.S. among adolescents and young adults as well as from international research. I will also provide examples of how the tobacco industry has actively promoted smoking in particular social spaces and in conjunction with particular activities through advertisements.