Paper Short Abstract:

In First Nations communities in Canada, affected by the trauma of genocide, silence can be a locus of shared pain. This silence is particularly pain-filled during encounters between those who are intoxicated and those who are not. This silence is interpreted in different ways by the people involved.

Paper Abstract:

During my doctoral fieldwork in Chisasibi, an Eeyou (First Nations/Indigenous) community in Northern Quebec, Canada, I conducted participant-observation and informal interviews with community members who identified as drinkers. I also spoke with many other community members, all of whom had either been drinkers or had drinkers amongst their loved ones. Due to the impacts of centuries of colonial genocide, no Indigenous communities are unaffected by intergenerational trauma, including addictions and other socially disruptive elements. But despite this shared trauma, there are many instances of “silence” in which things that are too painful to be said in words are expressed in other ways. From the point of view of many in the community, drinkers need to talk about their emotions to heal, but not when they are drunk. In this state, they are considered dangerous. They are to be avoided or met with silence to avoid provoking them. But that silence is a sad silence, filled with the empathy of shared trauma. From the point of view of those labelled “drunks”, however, drunkenness is the only state in which they are comfortable talking. Sobriety is uncomfortable and leads to another kind of silence. But that silence is also far from empty. Based on what drinkers and former drinkers shared with me, silence is a shame-filled state in which the pain of trauma cannot be articulated in words. The silence they remember meeting during drunken encounters fuels this shame, leading to fear of more rejection and, of course, to more silence.