Suchergebnisse

Problematic opioid use in Canada is on the rise, and opioid overdose deaths now number in the thousands each year. While opioids have long been responsible for overdoses among certain demographics of Canadians, such as drug users on Vancouver's notoriously impoverished downtown Eastside, it is only recently that fatal overdoses have also claimed the lives of White, middle‐class young people. This critical discourse analysis of Canadian news media examines the differences in racial representation in recent coverage of opioid deaths. I pay particular attention to the ways in which White opioid users are portrayed as innocent victims while other users, such as those from Indigenous communities, are often ignored or stigmatized as "addicts." I draw on the work of Hall (1978; 2000) and Reinarman and Levine (1989; 2004) on the role of media in representing race and constructing drug scares, to frame the media narratives. I then discuss the Canadian government's current harm‐reduction approach to the opioid crisis, as well as calls from Indigenous leaders for "culture as treatment."

Drawing on the first author's (Matthew) research with male psychiatric ward security guards whom he worked with for 16months, we discuss in this case study how bringing masculine status into semi-structured interviews produces gender relations and knowledges about men that would largely be inaccessible to researchers who are gendered outsiders. Matthew's insider status provided participants with an extra layer of comfort to speak freely about their patriarchal beliefs, which involved positioning women and queer people in security work as risky and less worthy subjects, as well as favoring violence as a means to resolve issues with captive mental health patients. We reflect on the implications of questions changing during the research process, especially when the researcher has powerful feelings and positions on their research question as a result of their immersion. The ways in which Matthew performed gender had changed considerably from the time he was doing security work to when he conducted his interviews. We expose his interview dialogue and questions that led to the production of a visceral knowledge and analysis of the contentious perspectives on gendered violence that were shared. We conclude by emphasizing the role reflexivity and forgiveness play in helping the researcher develop a sense of closure and ability to view participants as allies, not enemies. This case study provides readers with techniques and points of reflection on how to mobilize their emotions and political subjectivities in interview settings to draw out the important tensions and divergences participants may share.

Retail work has a prominent place in the Canadian job market in an era of global capitalism and consumption. Despite spanning an astonishing array of industries, this work is most often low-paying, low-status and un-unionized, leaving workers vulnerable to exploitation and discrimination from their employers. This qualitative content analysis of 1454 anonymous reviews of 25 Canadian retail employers posted on RateMyEmployer.ca explores how intersections of class, race and gender shape how workers make sense of difficult work experiences and their relative social privilege. We draw on Hewitt and Hall's concept of quasi-theorization to frame how everyday experiences of work justify foregone conclusions that allow reviewers to reassert status. Set against highly gendered, raced and classed expectations of the helpful, deferential, hardworking and cheerful retail worker, these quasi-theories demonstrate that ethnic and racial bias, reactive masculinities and battles between working-class supervisors and middle-class student employees lead to unresolved friction that erupts in anonymous, online spaces.

AbstractThis qualitative content analysis of 723 anonymous reviews of 60 Canadian food service employers, posted on RateMyEmployer.ca, explores how digital spaces publically circulate precarious workers' resistances and management of occupational stigma. We introduce to literature on "dirty work" the concept of socioeconomic hygiene, which identifies a particular kind of social and moral order within which the positions of the subordinated are naturalized between the socially and morally "clean" and "unclean."