Since 2016, The Ofrenda Lab Director, Dr. Andrea López, has been engaged in a longitudinal ethnographic project documenting the overdose crisis in Washington, DC. Since fentanyl has appeared in drug markets in the U.S., DC has consistently had one of the highest overdose mortality rates in the country. The city also exemplifies racial and spatial disparities, with overdose mortality risk being concentrated in Black communities in Wards 7 and 8.

This long-term ethnographic work investigates:

• how historical and structural contexts for overdose death in DC created a legacy of “racialized necropolitical warmaking” (Lopez, forthcoming 2027).

• the negotiation of necropolitical warmaking by those most impacted by the crisis, marginalized people who use drugs.

• the community strategies utilized to address racial disparities in overdose mortality and equity issues in public health responses to the crisis that include remembrance, harm reduction, and healing.