A death by medical assistance in dying (MAiD) is often equated with a good death or a death with dignity, yet how MAiD-bereaved family members in Canada conceptualize the relationship between dignity and MAiD is currently unknown. Using a critical narrative inquiry approach, this article explores how family members with complex MAiD experiences constructed the concept of dignity in their bereavement stories. Dignity is conceived of as a thick, culturally relative concept with descriptive and evaluative meanings. Twelve family members from (...) three of Canada’s provinces (Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario) completed narrative interviews about their experiences with complex MAiD bereavement. The interview transcripts are presented as short stories that portray how participants talk about dignity in relation to MAiD. These stories were analyzed from a critical narrative analysis approach that examined how institutional discourses are weaved into everyday stories about personal experience. The analysis identified three dignity narratives in participants’ stories: the Dignified MAiD Narrative, the Traumatic MAiD Narrative, and the Unjust MAiD Narrative. The Dignified MAiD Narrative may provide solace to family members who agreed with their loved one’s decision to choose MAiD; however, this narrative may simultaneously create moral tensions by setting unrealistic expectations for family members. The Traumatic and Unjust MAiD Narratives provide counter perspectives that challenge the notion that MAiD unequivocally leaves a legacy of a dignified, good death. (shrink)

Much of the extant popular culture literature points to the nihilistic and present-centred philosophies of material/image consumption common among North American youth enclaves. Few researchers, however, inspect how ascetic youth subcultures on the continent reject mainstream pressures to consume, and perform moral reformist work through the body. In this article, participant observation-based data collected on eastern Canadian practitioners of an ascetic lifestyle called ‘Straightedge’ are utilized to illustrate how social discipline and moral commentary is interactively displayed via ‘restrained’ body ritual. (...) Practitioners of Straightedge express a quasi-religious conviction or sense of ‘calling’ to their rather Puritanical way of life, and view commitment to Straightedge as an ongoing marker of self-control and efficacy. Straightedge narratives suggest how the desire to pursue asceticism springs from a learned cultural habitus, and how the practice may be ‘read’ by others as a form of social protest. Practitioners stress how the calling to asceticism serves as a means of personal salvation, and how performing Straightedge encourages ‘civilized’ corporeal practice. (shrink)