From nation to population: the racialisation of ‘Métis’ in the Canadian census†

ABSTRACT. Between 1996 and 2001 the ‘Métis population’ of Canada skyrocketed from 204,000 to 292,000, an astonishing and demographically improbable increase of 43 per cent. Most puzzling about this ‘increase’ is not so much the unpersuasive explanations offered by statisticians and others but, more fundamentally, the underlying assumption that such a thing as a ‘Métis population’ exists at all. In contrast, I argue that such an idea constitutes an artifact of Canada's racial/colonial episteme in which ‘the Métis’– formerly an indigenous nation invaded and displaced in the Canadian nation‐state's westward expansion – have been reduced in public and administrative discourse to include any indigenous individual who identifies as Métis: reduced, in other words, to (part of) a race. The paper argues further that the authority of the Canadian census as a privileged forum of contemporary meaning‐making in Canadian society is such that the lack of explicit Census categories to distinguish Métis Nation allegiance further naturalises a racialised construction of Métis at the expense of an indigenously national one.     

Migration and ethnic nationalism: Anglophone exit and the ‘decolonisation’ of Québec

This article explains the effects of ethnic nationalism on Anglophone and Francophone migration. The rise of Québec ethnic nationalism in the 1960s dismantled the cultural division of labour, which created new opportunities for Francophones but threatened Anglophones' traditional dominance over the Québec economy. This had negative consequences for Anglophones but positive outcomes for Francophones, which in turn accounts for differences in migration patterns. Drawing from the internal colony model as well as migration and exit‐voice theories, and using ecological census data, micro‐census data and election panel data, I find that the key variables that increase the likelihood of Anglophone out‐migration either do not explain Francophone out‐migration or have opposite effects. This is because ethnonationalist policies decreased the economic return particularly for well‐educated, higher‐earning, professional Anglophones in Québec, while increasing the economic position of Francophones and in particular well‐educated professionals.     

PRECEDENT AND NATIONALISM IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CANADA

This article employs literature on federalism to explore the ways in which national Canadian interest groups develop federative structures in order to conduct advocacy work within Québec. It first identifies institutional reasons for the development of federalist structures for Canadian groups, and it then explores asymmetries between the treatment of Québec chapters of these groups and of chapters elsewhere in Canada. Drawing on interviews with the political directors of groups active at the national level in Canada, this article shows that the degree to which groups grant power to their provincial or Québec subunits varies according to the benefits sought by groups.     

Articulating minority nationhood: cultural and political dimensions in Québec's reasonable accommodation debate

Given their precarious position within larger states, national minorities cannot rely on federal governments to affirm their nationhood. Moreover, insofar as nationhood is predicated on a shared history, language and culture, immigrants place additional strains on the maintenance of national distinctiveness and the political claims that derive from it. In 2006–2007, following a series of confrontations over religious practices in the public sphere, Québec's provincial government appointed the Bouchard–Taylor Commission to investigate avenues for the accommodation of immigrant‐related cultural and religious differences. While it failed to generate policy, the commission did provide a discursive space for the (re)assertion of Québécois nationhood. Analysing the production of national identity in newspaper debates of the Bouchard–Taylor report, we offer an alternative to the ethnic–civic paradigm in nationalism theory. Rather than treat ethnic and civic as two separate ends of a single continuum, we conceptualise a relationship between two dimensions: one of culture and one of politics. We show that in contemporary articulations of Québec national identity, the prerequisites of political membership derive their meaning from a productive tension between blood‐based and adoptive conceptions of national culture.     

Tracing the Distribution of Late 16th and Early 17th Century European Copper Artefacts in Southern Québec and Ontario,Canada

To understand the nature of trade/exchange of ‘Basque’ copper kettles and their fragments among Indigenous communities from Québec to Ontario, Canada, we examined 948 copper samples from 75 archaeological sites. We found that 936 samples were sortable into 11 coarse chemical groups: seven biased towards Ontario, three favouring Québec and only one balanced between the two provinces. This pattern may represent kettles and pieces ‘mostly traded’ or ‘mostly kept’ by Indigenous groups within Québec. Chemical group distribution within individual provinces is complex. A tentative chronology of copper chemical groups provides additional insight into the complex trading/exchange patterns among the Indigenous groups of southern Ontario.     

The rediscovery of ‘the national’ in the 1990s – contexts,new cultural forms and practices in reunified Germany

This article examines how and in which societal and political contexts nationhood is expressed and symbolised in reunified Germany. This ‘rediscovery’ of nationhood since the 1990s mixes new and old motifs of the cultural repertoire of ‘the national’ for different purposes. Three main contexts triggered a rediscovery of ‘the national’ after 1989: reunification, immigration and the retrenchment of the social state. I argue, by analysing ethnographic material and political discourses, that these contexts, on the one hand, rearticulate old forms of ethnic and cultural nationalism and, on the other hand, create new images and symbols of an open civic society and immigration country. There are ‘playful’ forms, such as campaigns of nation branding, that symbolically include the ‘productive’ and ‘useful’ immigrant into the national project. Moreover, such campaigns serve to legitimatise the downsizing of the national state that – according to a neoliberal attitude – relies on a new community spirit of entrepreneurial, ‘activated’ citizens who ‘help themselves’. Thus, focusing on these pluralised renationalisation processes makes evident how polyvalent ‘the national’ still is. It can be employed by those who attempt to ‘reunite’ the East and West Germans, by businesses to sell their goods and ideas and by almost any political orientation, be it right‐wing or left‐wing.     

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.     

Welshness in ‘British Wales’: negotiating national identity at the margins

Popular interpretations of national identity often focus on the unifying qualities of nationhood. However, societies frequently draw hierarchical distinctions between the people and places who are ‘most national’, and those who are ‘least national’. Little attention is paid to these marginal places within the nation and the experiences of their inhabitants. This article helps to address this by analysing the ‘less Welsh’ British Wales region of Wales, a country that has traditionally possessed a hierarchical, regionally constituted nationhood. The article studies the British Wales region both ‘from above’ – considering how some areas develop as ‘less national’ – and ‘from below’, introducing empirical ethnographic work into ‘everyday Welshness’ in this area. Whilst previous work on hierarchical nationhood focuses on how hierarchies are institutionalized by the state, this article demonstrates how people at the margins of the nation actively negotiate their place in the nation. Whilst people in this area expressed a strong Welshness, they also struggled to place themselves in the nation because they had internalized their lowly place within the national hierarchy. The article demonstrates the importance of place and social class for national identity construction and draws attention to the role of power in the discursive construction of hierarchical nationhood.     

Les victimes d’avalanche au Québec entre 1825 et 2009

Fatal avalanche accidents in Québec (Canada) 1825 to 2009 Archival research, coroner's investigations, and newspaper searches reveal the occurrence of 43 deadly snow avalanches in Québec since 1825. Historical records indicate 73 fatalities and more than 50 injuries. Sixty percent of the victims were younger than 20 years old. More than 50 percent of the victims (38 fatalities in 12 incidents) were inside or near a residential building, usually their home, mainly in the cities of Québec and Lévis. The second‐most deadly category is recreational activities, with over 24 deaths in 20 accidents. Most of these deadly incidents occurred on very short slopes (<70 metres of relief) outside mountainous areas. Only five fatalities were related to backcountry recreational activities in highlands. The inventory of avalanche‐threatened areas has never been completed in the Province of Québec and it is likely that avalanche‐prone areas are more widespread than previously thought.     

Québec et la géographie sociale en questions

Questioning Québec through social geography In the early 1960s, two revolutions were underway: the quiet revolution in Québec and the quantitative revolution in geography. Apparently unrelated, these episodes of change probably shared common underlying values associated with modernity. Since then, the transformations experienced in Québec have been interpreted in a multitude of ways, including geographical considerations. Research careers, mine included, have been shaped by this undertaking. All along, I have found that social geography, with the capacity it has to reinvent itself, has helped making sense of this turbulent environment. In the 1970s, exploring the structural dynamics of Canada's social space helped in figuring out the place occupied by Québec in this ensemble. Then, analyzing the historical relationships between cosmopolitan Montréal and provincial Québec City suggested that the oxymoron ‘quiet revolution’ stood for a central process in the cultural dynamics of Québec's social space, where new ideas arriving through Montréal are sifted and institutionalized by the state in Québec City. Nevertheless, Québec City is also capable of initiating progressive urban movements, as illustrated by the odyssey of the Rassemblement populaire de Québec, documented through participant observation. Such urban movements may affect the urban fabric but, as intense and creative social networks, they may affect even more their interacting members, as it seems to have been the case with regard to rapidly evolving gender relations during the last decades. All in all, after more than four decades, I keep the conviction that a practice of social geography that is open to various theories and methods is capable of producing liberating knowledge.     

Sub‐state nationalism and the welfare state: Québec and Canadian federalism

ABSTRACT. This article examines the relationship between sub‐state nationalism and the welfare state through the case of Québec in Canada. It argues that social policy presents mobilisation and identity‐building potential for sub‐state nationalism, and that nationalist movements affect the structure of welfare states. Nationalism and the welfare state revolve around the notion of solidarity. Because they often involve transfers of money between citizens, social programmes raise the issue of the specific community whose members should exhibit social and economic solidarity. From this perspective, nationalist movements are likely to seek the congruence between the ‘national community’ (as conceptualised by their leaders) and the ‘social community’ (the community where redistributive mechanisms should operate). Moreover, the political discourse of social policy lends itself well to national identity‐building because it is typically underpinned by collective values and principles. Finally, pressures stemming from sub‐state nationalism tend to reshape the policy agenda at both the state and the sub‐state level while favouring the asymmetrical decentralisation of the welfare state.     

Accommodation and the politics of fiscal equalization in multinational states: The case of Canada

The politics of accommodation in multinational states sometimes features an important, yet often overlooked, fiscal dimension. In fact, the scholarly literature on the accommodation of nationalist movements emphasizes territorial autonomy, access to power and representation within central institutions, and the promotion of the state national identity, but it is virtually silent on how patterns of territorial fiscal redistribution, and more specifically programs of horizontal fiscal equalization, may contribute to accommodating sub‐state nationalism. This article looks at the Canadian case and analyses the multidimensional relationship between equalization policy and Québécois nationalism. It explains how a key motivation behind the creation of Canada's fiscal equalization program in 1957 was to “end” the institutional and political isolation of Québec and how equalization may have, thereafter, contributed to making Québec's secession less appealing to a good number of Quebeckers than it would have been in the absence of this program. Simultaneously, the article discusses how equalization may have contributed to a certain political backlash against Québec in the other provinces, thus providing mixed evidence in the assessment of the accommodation potential of equalization policy.     

At the Intersection of Gender and Language: Why do Francophone Women have Lower Levels of Political Participation?

In Canada, research has found few differences in levels of political participation between Francophones and Anglophones despite traditional differences in resources leading to participation. This study argues that it is when gender is considered alongside language that differences emerge. Differences in conditions between Francophone and Anglophone women may mean that the explanations for the gender gaps differ. Findings show that Francophone women in Québec have lower levels of political participation than Anglophone women and men across Canada. These gender gaps are small but significant. Differences in resources and involvement in voluntary associations help account for Québec Francophone women’s lower participation. Additionally, these results indicate that the different political context and the different political influence of the women’s movement in Québec matter in determining explanations for gender gaps in political participation.     

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.     

‘Oh motherland I pledge to thee …’: a study into nationalism,gender and the representation of an imagined family within national anthems

In this paper, we argue that beyond understanding nations as imagined communities, the metaphor of an ‘imagined family’ or ‘filial community’ is a more useful concept towards understanding links between gender and nationhood as family relations in four ways: (1) providing a clear, hierarchical structure; (2) prescribing social roles and responsibilities; (3) being linked to positive affective connotations; and (4) reifying social phenomena as biologically determined. In order to empirically substantiate our claim, we will explore the prevalence and use of family metaphors in a key symbol of nationhood discourses. Through a qualitative analysis of national anthems as ‘mnemonics of national identity’, we demonstrate the widespread presence of family metaphors, discussing how they reproduce ideas of family and gender. Finally, we discuss how the ‘imagined family’ as present in anthems and other forms of national representation could inform future studies of nationalism and national politics.     

The strange case of ‘John Black’ and ‘Mr Hyde’: constructing migrating Jamaicans as (un)worthy nationals

This paper examines how migrating Jamaicans were constructed as ‘worthy’ or ‘unworthy’ of Jamaican diasporic membership in the early years of statehood, to demonstrate the role of nationalist cultural repertoires in constructing particular diasporic imaginaries. I conduct a discourse analysis of Jamaica's national newspaper, The Daily Gleaner, between 1962 and 1966, a period encompassing crucial transitions in Jamaican migration movements and from colony to statehood. I argue that tropes of respectability present in Afro‐creole nationalist ideology form the cultural repertoires used to distinguish migrants' actions as worthy or unworthy of national membership. These distinctions specify who ‘counts’ as part of the diaspora and how migrants of different social positions may claim and articulate their membership.     

The “Bad” French of Justin Trudeau: When Language,Ideology, and Politics Collide

This article discusses the ideological underpinnings and sociolinguistic factors driving the pervasive negative social discourse on the quality of the French language spoken by Canada’s current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The “obsession” among Québécois with the quality of Justin Trudeau’s French is demonstrated in an analysis of a corpus of commentary generated in Quebec’s mainstream press during the period surrounding the 2015 Canadian federal election. This intensely negative metadiscourse is shown to be rooted in the context of Quebec’s difficult sociolinguistic history and its contemporary language ideologies, viewed here as biased in favor of speakers with monolingual competence and French-Canadian ancestry. Crucially, the pervasive criticism of Justin Trudeau’s French and the ensuing denial to him of Francophone status are claimed here to serve as a proxy for extra-linguistic criticism and the positioning him as “other” with respect to Québécois collective identity.     

Une histoire de résidus : à propos des facteurs généraux et locaux de croissance régionale au Canada,de 1971 à 2001

Starting from an econometric model of local employment growth, applied to Canada (1971–2001), residuals—relative to model predictions—are analyzed over time and over space, in turn allowing us to draw a distinction between general explanatory variables and factors of a more local, cyclical or accidental nature. The model's explanatory power grows over time, founded on variables such as urban size, market access and industrial structure, allowing us to conclude that local employment growth in Canada follows an increasingly geographically predictable pattern. However, an examination of the residuals reveals more localized processes. Growth volatility is most manifest in Alberta and British Columbia, home to the most erratic local economies. Emerging patterns are visible in the last period, most notably the underperformance of Northern Ontario and of non‐metropolitan communities between Windsor and Québec City, lying along the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence. The over‐performance—compared to model predictions — of small and mid‐sized towns in south‐eastern Québec can, on the other hand, be interpreted as a sign of truly local social processes, generally associated with a particularly dynamic local entrepreneurial class.     

Nunavik and the Multiple Dimensions of Inuit Governance

ABSTRACT

Over the last five decades, the emergence of a sophisticated and multidimensional set of governance institutions in the predominantly Inuit regions of Canada and the circumpolar north has had a profound impact on the lives of Inuit peoples and the states in which they live. The region of Nunavik in northern Québec has played an important role in the political development of the Canadian and circumpolar Inuit, serving as both an institutional innovator and a key source of leadership at the regional, national, and international levels. Using a multilevel governance framework, this article explores the vertical and horizontal dimensions of Inuit governance in Canada and the circumpolar north. In particular, the article will focus on Nunavik’s contribution to and place in this multidimensional governance structure.     

‘Scientific’ nationalism

This paper investigates how the discursive battle for the Flemish nation is waged in the Flemish mass media by politicians of the Flemish nationalist party, the New Flemish Alliance (N‐VA). I focus on the ‘new nationalism’ that N‐VA politicians advocate as a means to ‘banalise’ a hot Flemish nationalism. I establish that N‐VA spokespeople and especially their chairman Bart De Wever invoke discursive alliances with established scholars such as Anderson, Hroch, Calhoun and Billig. On the one hand, these alliances are used to sell their nationalism as a non‐ideological or non‐discursive project. On the other hand, the analyses of these intellectuals are used as manuals to ‘banalise’ a hot nationalism. The concept of ‘scientific’ nationalism refers to the entextualisation of scientific discourses in order to legitimate and banalise the nationalist project of the party as ‘in line with science’.