Some studies suggest that religion is becoming a salient marker of immigrant identity. The protective impulse by western democracies to defend secularism can thus act as a barrier to immigrant integration. Given its legislative stance on... more
Some studies suggest that religion is becoming a salient marker of immigrant identity. The protective impulse by western democracies to defend secularism can thus act as a barrier to immigrant integration. Given its legislative stance on secularism, Quebec affords a unique opportunity to study the interplay of attitudes and political culture on host community openness to cultural diversity. Surveying 395 south-eastern Quebec mother-tongue French and English participants, we found that though the former deemed ethnic and religious targets as more open to close social contact than the latter, they were less accommodating of diversity. Their perceptions of religious target openness overshadowed their views of ethnic targets, thereby registering less accommodating attitudes while confirming their perception of religion as a salient marker of immigrant diversity. Contextualizing a social-psychological analysis of attitudes toward immigration seems relevant when seen through two linguisti...
competing visions of the land being measured does not play a major role in Surveyors of Empire. Given the territorial strength of the Mi’kmaq and Wulstukwiuk (even after the Seven Years’ War), more could have been done to detail how the... more
competing visions of the land being measured does not play a major role in Surveyors of Empire. Given the territorial strength of the Mi’kmaq and Wulstukwiuk (even after the Seven Years’ War), more could have been done to detail how the surveying process challenged (and was challenged by) Aboriginal concepts of space and geography. When Hornsby does examine surveying shortcomings, he offers nuanced and convincing arguments. For example, he challenges the traditional argument that renaming places was a form of possession, because maps of Cape Breton Island with imperial names circulated only among a small number of imperial officials. ‘‘As a result,’’ Hornsby notes, ‘‘maps and the toponyms they carried were never embedded in the customary, vernacular world of the region’s inhabitants’’ (141). Surveyors of Empire offers a richly detailed and beautifully illustrated account of a major moment in the history of the British Empire generally and British North America specifically. Tracing the men who made maps and the methods they used illuminates how imperial authorities attempted to exercise control over distant territory. By taking geographic knowledge seriously, Hornsby sheds new light on how empires were constructed and controlled in the eighteenth century. jeffers lennox Wesleyan University
Innu residents of Labrador-Quebec, Samson demonstrates how ‘the wilful ignorance’ of settlers contributed to the devastation apparent in indigenous communities today. Much of the analysis is informed by Samson’s fieldwork in the... more
Innu residents of Labrador-Quebec, Samson demonstrates how ‘the wilful ignorance’ of settlers contributed to the devastation apparent in indigenous communities today. Much of the analysis is informed by Samson’s fieldwork in the settlements of Natuashish, Davis Inlet (Utshimassists), Sheshatshiu and Matimekush, which he has visited frequently since the 1990s. The many interview excerpts add richness to the narrative and thoughtful reflections on the realities of dealing on a daily basis with the consequences of colonialism. Examples from other parts of North America, and indeed, other parts of the world, are referred to throughout the book, thus illuminating all too clearly the extent to which settler colonialism’s insidious grip has taken hold, and the ways in which its participants justified the practices associated with it. These practices worked to deny the histories and values of those people who were being displaced but, after decades of concerted efforts to stamp out their wa...
Contents: Carmen Concilio: Michael Ondaatje's Divisadero and Photography - Lucia Boldrini: The Anamorphosis of Photography in Michael Ondaatje's The Collected Works of Billy the Kid - Jeffrey Orr: Light Writing, Light Reading:... more
Contents: Carmen Concilio: Michael Ondaatje's Divisadero and Photography - Lucia Boldrini: The Anamorphosis of Photography in Michael Ondaatje's The Collected Works of Billy the Kid - Jeffrey Orr: Light Writing, Light Reading: Photography and Intersemiotic Translation in Michael Ondaatje - Keith Harrison: Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen: The Performance of Self, Forty Years On - Frances Sprout: Ghosts, Leaves, Photographs, and Memory: Seeing and Remembering Photographically in Daphne Marlatt's Taken - Ron Bonham: "The Angel Voices": Photography, Film and Point of View in Ann-Marie MacDonald's Fall On Your Knees - Simona Bertacco: Old Texts, New Readings: The Ledger, Steveston and Picture Poetics - Richard J. Lane: Dialectical Images in Canada: Joseph Dandurand, Stan Douglas & The Conjectural Order.
