Unsilencing Stories: Creating a Counter-Memorial Podcast with Bereaved People Affected by Canada's Opioid Overdose Crisis

Abstract

More than 32,000 people in Canada have experienced fatal opioid overdoses since a public health emergency was declared in 2016, according to Health Canada. Communities of less than 100,000 residents face disproportionately high rates of death from causes associated with illicit substance use. Many people in smaller cities and towns whose loved ones have died from opioid toxicity report feeling silenced by a lack of substantive reporting on the crisis in their communities and because of stigmatizing coverage of the issue by dominant media organizations. This paper explores an experimental community-centred journalism project conducted with 42 family members and friends of people who experienced fatal opioid overdoses in smaller centres in British Columbia and Alberta. Participants engaged in remote and reciprocal peer-to-peer interviews as a means of communicating with each other. The purpose of the study was to examine whether these methods could enable collaborators to publicly grieve, memorialize decedents in nuanced ways, and create counter-narratives about people who use drugs and experience fatal overdose. Participants’ recorded interviews are disseminated on a podcast titled Unsilencing Stories (www.unsilencingstories.com/).