Recovery, Identity, Resistance: Exploring Substance Use Stigma in Rural Ontario

ABSTRACT

Although much attention focuses on mental health recovery and stigma, less attention is paid to substance use especially in rural areas. This qualitative study draws on Foucauldian and intersectional approaches to examine the sociocultural processes by which stigmatized identities are constructed and rejected at micro and macro levels. A thematic analysis is applied to 40 interviews with people with substance use issues in two rural communities. Findings illustrate that stigma is constructed through binary identity categories and intersectional identities rooted in neoliberal contexts. Resistance is demonstrated at personal, peer, public, and structural levels, offering counter narratives of strength and resilience.

KEYWORDS:

• Recovery
• stigma
• substance use
• resistance
• rural

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data available on request due to privacy/ethical restrictions

Ethics approval

This work was approved on November 21, 2018 by the University of Toronto Research Ethics Board for Human Participants. RIS Human Protocol Number 36,833 and Protocol #11319.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada under Grant 752-2016-1135.