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To be one who continues to smoke: Construction of legitimacy and meaning in young adults’ accounts of smoking

This study analyses young smokers’ accounts of continuing to smoke in a context of increasing structural and symbolic pressure to quit. It explores the accounts in relation to issues of legitimacy, meaning and identity. A qualitative study was conducted with interviews with 21 male and female smokers aged 18–23 years. The interviewees described themselves in various ways as ‘in control’ of their smoking, discursively rejecting addiction. They also spoke about control in accounts of calculation of risk of ill health, and of compensating for smoking by other health promoting lifestyles. At the same time the interviewees talked about smoking in a way that opposed this rational discourse, highlighting pleasure and an emotional and metaphysical side of smoking. The material was interpreted using a discourse analytic framework, inspired by a Foucauldian understanding of discourse as impacting on the construction of subjectivity, selfhood and identity.