Gunflints from Chicoutimi Indian site (Québec)

Historical Archaeology - The aim of this study is to introduce new criteria for the identification and dating of 17th century gun-flints. The discovery of a new variety of spall gunflint is...     

The fertility of the Inuit of Northern Québec: A half‐century of fluctuations

The fertility of the Inuit of Northern Québec went through many changes during the last fifty years. We observe, at first, a decline during the thirties followed by a recovery, in the early forties, stopped momentarily between 1946 and 1956. The fertility reached a summit around 1961 to drop sharply afterwards. In spite of this important decrease, the fertility of the Inuit remains much higher than the generations replacement level.

We will try to relate these fluctuations in the Northern Québec Inuit fertility to the various events that influenced the recent history of this population such as starvations, epidemics, settling process, health improvements and socio‐economic changes.     

Five Decades of Canadian and Québec Content in French Textbooks in the United States

This study investigates the evolution of Canadian and Québec content in a sample of 65 first-year university French textbooks in the United States from the 1960s through 2010. Overall indicators of Canadian and Québec contexts and cultural notes were tabulated for each decade in addition to particular content such as Canadian history, Québec identity, and Canadian French language. The chronological analysis challenges the popular notion that teachers and textbooks authors are inherently uninterested in Canada. Instead, the analysis finds Canadian and Québec content increasing over the five-decade period reaching an all-time high point in the most recent decade. Results are explained by dynamic Québec-based factors of language politics and foreign relations initiatives rather than static US-based attitudes toward Canadian French. The analysis offers optimism for the role of Canadian and Québec Studies as a source of content for the teaching of French in the United States.     

Indigenous Tourism and Processes of Resilience – About Communicative Strategies among Tourism Workers in Québec

ABSTRACT

Tourism is a well-known way of life for an increasing portion of the world's indigenous communities, and it has taken tortuous paths and undergone changes in approach and meaning.

Indigenous tourism is examined here within the theoretical framework of resilience, focusing on development, communication and justification. Men and women and their perspectives on space, time and spatial relations are the crucial agents in these processes. Based on an empirical study in Québec, Canada, we show that the impact of indigenous tourism includes networks within the local community at the regional and national levels, as well as translocal networks and relationships. Communicative processes are essential for achieving resilience, communicating identity within families and the community, and giving a voice to a political project. We argue that indigenous tourism works on several geographical levels and that these levels intersect and have the potential to increase resilience if they interact. Our study supplements resilience development theory by highlighting the need to consider communities as parts of networks. It also contributes to the field of tourism research by emphasising communication on several levels.     

Measuring Inuit Health from Ungava to Nunavik via Nouveau Québec: Episodes in the History of Researcher–Subject Relations

ABSTRACT

Inuit have been the subject of research attention since the earliest encounters with Europeans. Using the Foucauldian concept of biopolitics this article explores the history of researcher–research subject relations produced through health knowledge in the region now known as Nunavik. This history is organized in three time periods: The first is the “Ungava” era and is explored in the observations of members of the Hudson Bay Expedition and subsequent mapping efforts. The second “Nouveau Québec” era begins in 1912 when the current borders of Québec were established and lasts until 1975. After a period of indifference, research interest grows rapidly in the post-war period with a focus of social adaptation and culture change. The third era begins in 1975 with the signing of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. This marks the beginning of Inuit political development within an Inuit-controlled regional governance structure. The conceptualization of three different health surveys during this period shows an emerging complexity in how Inuit health is imagined. An upcoming fourth survey which marks the first time the study of Inuit physical, social, and community health will be initiated by an Inuit-led health authority.     

“Québec History X”: Re-Visioning the Past Through Rap 1

This article examines how contemporary rap texts invoke historical events to contribute to a vision of the imagined community of Québec as a diverse and accommodating, “transcultural” society. It examines how the recent anthem rap songs of the controversial, franco-nationalist rappers Loco Locass actually reflect the attitude of accommodation found in the recent Bouchard-Taylor Report. Similar sentiments of reconciliation appear in their collaboration with franco-Algonuin rapper Samian, “La Paix des Braves” (Face à la Musique, 2008) which commemorates the Great Peace of Montréal and the more recent agreement between Québec and the Cree in 2002. In contrast, Webster, a black rapper from Québec City, suggests in “Quebec History X” (Sagesse immobile, 2008) that such visions elide historical incidences of racial oppression and conflict, and that Québécois society still has progress to make in terms of revealing its past in order to enlighten the present.     

On the legitimacy of cultural policies: analysing Québec’s cultural policy with the Economies of Worth

This paper explores the question of the legitimation of cultural policies by examining the case of the Canadian French-speaking province, Québec, where the consensus over the legitimacy and the purpose of a cultural policy was not easily reached. To understand the evolution of the justifications for state intervention in this field, we have analysed three major policy statements issued by the government of Québec as well as the criticisms levelled at the moment of their publication using the analytic framework the Economies of Worth. Developed by French sociologist Luc Boltanski and economist Laurent Thévenot, this framework conceptualises different regimes of justification that can be retraced in cultural policy statements. We explore more particularly the concept of ‘compromise’ which enables us to understand why cultural policies have difficulty achieving consensus. This paper thus aims at assessing the heuristic value of this interpretative device for cultural policy analysis.     

Work intensifications,injuries and legal exclusions for paid domestic workers in Montréal,Québec

There is increasing research on the intensification of work in the post-1980s time period. The focus on flexibility in management practices has resulted in more tasks being offloaded onto workers who must then adjust their time-use to accommodate the greater workload. Studies of work intensification are not new to manufacturing production and there is increasing attention to unpaid domestic labour and service sectors. One industry, however, that has been neglected by these studies is paid domestic work where employers are individuals or families. Drawing on the traditions of feminist political economy and geography, I argue that the socio-spatial specificity of paid domestic work contributes an emphasis on workplace injury and labour law exclusion to intensification of work paradigms. Based on qualitative interviews conducted in Montréal, Québec from 2013 to 2015, I show how paid domestic workers intertwine narratives about work intensification and workplace injury yet remain excluded from the Act respecting occupational health and safety and the Workers’ Compensation Act in Québec. Migrant women caregivers are disproportionately impacted by these exclusions and I show how the Filipino Women’s Organization in Québec (PINAY) is at the forefront of challenging these exclusions. In conclusion, I propose an approach that combines feminist geography and political economy to consider how time-squeezes impacting individual or household employers may be intensifying the workloads of their paid domestic workers and how labour law structurally excludes workers along the social dimensions of gender, race and citizenship.     

Cultural development: a new policy paradigm in the cultural policies of the 1970s in Québec

The common expression of ‘cultural development’ appears in many cultural policy statements without it necessarily arousing questions about its precise meaning. Indeed, we usually spontaneously associate ‘cultural development’ to any governmental intervention that aims at stimulating cultural vitality. However, if we look more closely at the origin of this concept, we soon discover that its appearance on the eve of May 68, in France, corresponds to the rise of new concerns in cultural policy matters and to a radical redefinition of the state’s role in this domain. Still enjoying a strong influence, France’s political transformations were closely followed by some Quebecois politicians and socially engaged intellectuals who were participating, at that time, in the formulation of a new political vision in cultural matters in Québec in the 1960s and 1970s. The objective of this paper is thus to retrace the origin of the idea of cultural development and follow its evolution in Québec.     

Has Québec Become a Northern Mexico? Public Opinion and America's “Long War”

In contrast with Mexico, a consistent pattern of anti-Americanism has never been present in Québec, but there has been an ostensible upsurge in anti-American sentiment recently. This article asks whether Québec has become a “northern Mexico” with respect to societal attitudes displayed toward the United States. To answer this, we first explore the argument that Mexico is effectively an axiomatically anti-American land. We then examine public opinion in Québec, with a view to contrasting it with Mexican views, especially on the all-important question of the use of force in international politics. We argue that Quebeckers show themselves to be more supportive than Mexicans of the idea that the “international community” in certain instances does have both a right and a duty to intervene in the domestic affairs of states.     

Empire and Globalisation: from ‘High Imperialism’ to Decolonisation

Reviewing the expansion and ultimate demise of the British and French empires, this article takes a long view of globalisation as an integral part of Europe's recent imperial past. The authors’ argument is that these empires were not simply a global phenomenon. Rather, the processes that built and destroyed them were more actively ‘globalising’. In this context, they argue that the rise and fall of the two pre-eminent overseas empires had several globalising effects. These globalising effects include distinct patterns of migration and communication, critical shifts in the movement of goods and capital, new forms of transnational connection, changing conceptualisations of community and individual rights, and discrete forms of violence and conflict that outlasted the ‘formal’ end of empires.     

Opération Amérique: Québec’s Soft Power Applied to French Language Teaching in the United States

ABSTRACT

Opération Amérique refers to the coordinated efforts of René Lévesque’s Parti Québécois government beginning late 1970s to promote Québec’s interests in the United States. The general goals and strategies of Opération Amérique suggest that it presents a case of soft power. However, the specific actions implemented as well as their effects have barely been explored. An analysis of original documents pertaining to Opération Amérique indicates that specific groups in the United States—namely, French professors—were targeted with the hope that they would improve perceptions of Québec in the United States. An examination of French textbooks used in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s shows an increase in Canada/Québec content, which may reflect the influence of Opération Amérique on French teaching practices.     

Protection from the British Empire? Central Africa and the Church of Scotland

This article demonstrates that the Church of Scotland did not seek to undermine the Central African Federation from the moment of its foundation in 1953. This misconception derives from many of the church's missionaries in the region who demonstrated open disdain for the Federation throughout its existence. They were upset that it had been imposed by the white settlers of Central Africa and the British government over the objections of the indigenous Africans. The church, however, did not follow its missionaries. Instead, it sought to make the federal scheme work for all concerned. The Reverend George MacLeod, perhaps the most visible church leader of the twentieth century, played an important role in trying to make the Federation function between 1953 and early 1959. It was not until after the declaration of the Nyasaland Emergency in March 1959 that the church passed a deliverance demanding an autonomous, African-run Nyasaland, at the behest of MacLeod's Committee Anent Central Africa. Deliverances are resolutions presented to the commissioners of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. The commissioners listen to the deliverances and then choose to accept, reject, add to, or amend each of them. Deliverances accepted, or passed, by the General Assembly become law. These laws determine how the Church of Scotland operates. This divergence between the Church of Scotland and its missionaries before the Emergency resulted from the Church's sense of historical obligation to protect the indigenous peoples of Nyasaland from the possibly deleterious consequences of rapid decolonisation. Afterwards, the church focused on protecting the Africans from the federal government by setting them free from the British Empire.     

Can national cultural policy approaches be used for sub‐national comparisons? An analysis of the Québec and Ontario experiences in Canada

There has been relatively little comparative research undertaken on sub‐national cultural policy. This article aims to contribute to the development of sub‐national comparative studies by assessing the utility of national cultural policy approaches for comparative research at the sub‐national level in Canada. Drawing on studies of national cultural policy, the authors develop three main approaches to cultural policy and administration – the French, British and hybrid approaches – and explore their applicability to the origin and evolution of cultural policy and administration in the Canadian provinces of Québec and Ontario. This exploratory research suggests there is room for optimism in drawing on national‐level experiences to undertake sub‐national comparative cultural policy research, particularly for comparisons over broad time periods. The study also suggests that it will be important in subsequent research to further elaborate the models for present‐day comparative analysis and to refine and adapt them to reflect specificities at the provincial level of analysis.     

Promoting a Different Type of North–South Interactions: Québécois Cultural and Religious Paradiplomacy with Latin America

ABSTRACT

The historiography on Canadian–Latin American relations states that economic incentives, along with geopolitical concerns during the Second World War, have always been the chief reason behind Canadian interests in the region. This article argues that social groups from Quebec had other incentives to establish connections with Latin America. Quebec’s civil society became well connected with Latin American groups before the North American Free Trade Agreement facilitated economic and political cooperation, thanks mostly to the intensive Catholic missionary effort in the region, and positive representations of Latino culture in French Canadian sociopolitical circles in the 1940s and 1950s. As a result, Francophones’ interests diverged from Canada’s main objectives in the region; Quebec’s civil society’s engagement was distinctly more cultural and social in nature. Because of the difference of objectives, this article shows that social groups from Quebec attempted to influence Canadian–Latin American relations to suit their interests.     

Missionary Critiques of Empire, 1920–1932: Between Interventionism and Anti-imperialism

This article investigates the activism of North American evangelical and Christian pacifist missionaries, specifically the leadership of the Committee of Cooperation in Latin America (CCLA) and the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), who took direct action to oppose US foreign policy toward Latin America prior to the promulgation of the Good Neighbor Policy in 1933. These historical actors were struggling to articulate a moral and Christian-based anti-imperialism that would bring Latin Americans and North Americans together. They were doing so at a critical historical moment of high US interventionism. Their respective missionary agendas demanded that they articulate non-violent, ethical and spiritual forms of anti-imperialist dissent as a way to salvage the Western Hemisphere from excessive materialism and unfair governance as well as to bolster the legitimacy of their missionary work abroad. A distinctive feature of the CCLA and the FOR's missionary work was their attempts to forge relationships with sectors of the Latin American anti-imperialist left. Their critiques of empire thus emerged in dialogue with anti-imperialist ideas that came from outside the United States, as they allowed themselves to be instructed by the vision and philosophies of the Latin American thinkers themselves.