“Peace is Our Only Shelter”: Questioning Domesticities of Militarization and White Privilege

Abstract: This paper traces how Los Angeles peace activists tried to make visible the grave domestic effects of Cold War militarization. Women Strike for Peace went beyond a focus on the productive relations between the state, military and industry captured by the term “military–industrial complex” to analyze how reproductive spaces were part of this complex. In opposing war, they challenged what I am calling militarized domesticities: how war‐making shapes the ‘home front’ and home as the spaces national security states claim to protect. I build on feminist antiracist intersectionality theories to situate the military–industrial complex per se within broader processes of the militarization of society and daily life. The questions become how do gendered processes of militarization—that work in conjunction with relations of white privilege—produce and connect differently situated “private” spaces or home places? How might strategies for dismantling the military–industrial complex emerge from the contradictions of these processes?     

Southern (Over) Exposure? Quebec and the Evolution of Canada’s Grand Strategy, 2002–2012

ABSTRACT

One of the most persistent themes in the debate on Canadian foreign policy over the past few decades concerns the influence Quebec is thought to possess over the design and implementation of Canadian foreign and defense policy. Our purpose in this article is to situate this general debate within a more specific context, of Canada’s grand strategic choices as they principally involve the country’s security and defense relations with the US. To do this, we adopt somewhat of a “counterfactual” tack; to wit, we inquire whether, in the absence of Quebec from the Canadian confederation, we should expect to have seen a fundamentally different grand strategy fashioned by Ottawa, one with different significance for relations with the US. We focus on two specific cases, both of which have figured prominently in recent Canadian–American strategic relations: the war in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq. We conclude that while there is something to the claim that Quebec can and does boast of a certain “specificity” in the matter of Canada’s grand-strategic preferences, it is hardly the same thing as arguing that the country without Quebec would have adopted policies on both Afghanistan and Iraq that were fundamentally different from the ones it chose to follow.     

Our Own Monument: Landscape in the Linguistic Others of Quebec and Puerto Rico

ABSTRACT

It is common in discourse surrounding Québécois and Puerto Rican nationalism to discuss both regions in terms of their linguistic marginality to Anglo-majorities found in Canada and the USA, respectively. As two areas faced with the common American task of inventing a national identity in displaced settings in the New World, English becomes an easy “other” against which the French Quebecker and Spanish Puerto Rican may define themselves. However, language becomes a problematic means of definition when considered in relation to its intrinsically Old World origins. This paper reexamines Quebec and Puerto Rican nationalism from a larger New World perspective that focuses on the role of American landscapes and settings in conjunction with the traditional linguistic approach.     

The militarization of islands and migration: Tracing human mobility through US bases in the Caribbean and the Pacific

In this paper, we argue that the confinement of people on island military bases, whether narrated as humanitarian rescue, migration management, refugee resettlement, or militarized border enforcement, is an imperial process of ruination that impairs human possibility and erodes access to rights. Furthermore, the government's categorization of mobile people – as refugees, displaced, detainees, or migrants – informs the naming of these spaces, the bureaucratic and legal processes that they are subjected to, and their treatment (by local communities, federal authorities, the media, and the law). Empirical material is drawn from qualitative research conducted on US migration control in the Caribbean and Pacific. We identify spatial patterns of militarization operating across these sites, wherein migration is intertwined with enforcement, confinement, and militarization.     

The Special Relationship Transformed. The Canada–Quebec–France Triangle after de Gaulle

ABSTRACT

Because of France’s unique role in Quebec’s international relations, any study of Quebec’s emergence on the international scene necessarily involves an analysis of this relationship. This article proposes an examination of Canada–France–Quebec relations in the decades following de Gaulle’s resignation in 1969. Several scholars focus on France’s implicit support for Quebec independence, considering that to be the essential ingredient of their “special relationship,” whereas I demonstrate that the foregoing interpretation overlooks the fact that France began to withdraw from the Canadian internal debate soon after de Gaulle’s resignation. During the last forty years, France’s abstention from interfering in Canadian internal affairs enabled both the flourishing of Quebec diplomacy and the deepening of the France–Quebec relationship.     

Embodying the garrison state? Everyday geographies of militarization in American society

This study evaluates the garrison state hypothesis (Lasswell, 1941, Lasswell, 1962), which posited that the United States and other democratic states were becoming militarized societies, dominated by military culture, values, and goals. Building on the work of various scholars who have more recently identified the militarization of U.S. policies and other actions emanating from the formal state apparatus, we have explored the everyday geographies of the nation-state, with particular emphasis upon the experiences and activities of people in local settings. Considering the contingency of how everyday geographies of the state are constituted, two towns (Hopkinsville, Kentucky and Clarksville, Tennessee) neighboring Fort Campbell, Kentucky are analyzed using interviews, participant observations, and documentary evidence to examine manifestations of militarism and ongoing processes of militarization. Despite their common adjacency to Fort Campbell, the agency of actors in Hopkinsville and Clarksville has at times resulted in different bases for resistance to, and acceptance of, militarizing processes. We conclude that the construction of a ‘friendly’ or democratic ‘garrison state’ does not emerge in a simple, top-down manner, but rather is possible only with the people and practices who constitute the everyday geographies of the state, though this process is negotiated differently in different settings due to the complex central–local relations occurring within them.     

Governing from the Border? Quebec’s Role in North American Security

ABSTRACT

This article aims to shed light on Quebec’s role in cross-border security governance. It exposes the challenges Quebec is facing in this area and what cross-border activities fall within its jurisdiction. The supported hypothesis in this article is that security is subjected to an increasing politicization from the Quebec government in a post-9/11 context, which contributes to the edification of an embryonic “multilevel governance.” If this politicization was noticeable in political statements and international agreements, it seems that it was more driven by conjectural imperatives than a real desire to make Quebec a leader in transnational security. Therefore, there were no diplomatic and financial commitments to make security part of the Gérin-Lajoie doctrine and develop a similar paradiplomacy as in other fields. However, on different technical and bureaucratic levels, transgovernmental relations between certain Quebec governmental organizations, including police corps, and their American counterparts were created. Consequently, they contributed to make continental action more effective, at least in a certain measure.     

Mission statement: militarized discourses in women's advocacy organizations

This article contributes to the literature on the role of advocacy groups in political processes by exploring militarism within women's advocacy organizations. Specifically, I bring together theories of banal nationalism and banal militarization to inform my analysis of pervasive militarized discourse in 13 women's advocacy groups in the state of Pennsylvania, USA. Discursive analysis of organizational websites and in-depth interviews with organizational leaders reveals that the use of militarized discourse is commonplace among state-level women's advocacy groups. I ultimately argue that advocacy groups' use of militarized discourse is inherently problematic as it reinforces hegemonic privilege and detracts from progressive organizing. I also account for the role that discourse plays in the creation of place/space (and vice versa) in my discussion of how Pennsylvania's unique political culture affects advocacy for women's rights. Grounded in feminist geopolitical work, I offer some potential solutions to militarism within political advocacy: namely a re-focusing of advocates' attention on the lived experiences of their constituents.     

A Quiet Revolution in Diplomacy: Quebec–UK Relations Since 1960

ABSTRACT

Quebec’s modern international outlook and its current paradiplomacy can be dated largely from the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. Since then, the provincial government in Quebec City and the federal government in Ottawa have had to tread a fine line in accommodating each other’s constitutional rights in the field of international relations—a line that has occasionally been breached, especially in the years following the Quiet Revolution and in critical periods such as those prior to the 1980 and 1995 referenda. Foreign governments have also had to engage in careful diplomacy in order to avoid upsetting either Ottawa or Quebec City—and this has been especially true in the case of the countries historically most involved with Canada and Quebec—France, the United States, and Britain. But whereas there has been some academic writing on Quebec’s relationships with France and the United States, very little attention has been devoted to Quebec–UK relations since the Quiet Revolution. This article seeks to fill that gap and argues that the Quebec–UK relationship since the 1960s can itself best be characterized as a “quiet revolution” in diplomacy that has largely avoided the controversies that have sometimes dogged Quebec’s relations with France and the United States.     

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.     

Walking,mothering and care: a sensory ethnography of journeying on-foot with children in Wollongong,Australia

This article presents a material feminist perspective into motherhood and walking. Our aim is to explore the process of women ‘becoming mothers’ through journeying on-foot somewhere with children in car-dependent cities. To do so we utilise empirical material gathered as part of a walking sensory ethnography with families living in Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s assemblage thinking and a feminist care ethics we argue that entanglements with bodies and materials alongside ideas, emotions and affects shape how motherhood becomes and is felt on-the-move through ‘moments of care’. We discuss five moments where care emerges not just as a gendered practice, but as an affective force and embodiment of motherhood; these include: preparedness, togetherness, playfulness, watchfulness, and attentiveness. Instead of assuming the figure of the mother is a given identity; insights are provided into how the dilemmas of becoming a ‘good’ mobile mother are felt through moments of care.     

Education and the Origins of Quebec’s International Engagement

ABSTRACT

This article examines some of the ways that education has served as a catalyst for the engagement of Quebec and Quebeckers with the broader world, from the educational activities of French Canadian missionaries beginning in the late-nineteenth century to the growing involvement of secular nongovernmental organizations and of the government of Quebec itself in international educational assistance in the mid- to late-twentieth century. For the government of Quebec in particular, jurisdiction over education was integral to the development of Quebec’s own international identity and the Gérin-Lajoie Doctrine that both articulated and bolstered its claim to international competence. The controversy surrounding Quebec’s international educational endeavors has declined since the 1970s, and with it the relative amount of attention and funding devoted to it by the provincial government, yet education broadly defined remains a bridge linking Quebec and Quebeckers to the wider world and catalyzing their engagement with it.     

Pacifism and the Question of Responsibility

ABSTRACT

This article explores the relationship between pacifism and responsibility through conversations with four white U.S. women formed in historic peace church traditions. The conversations resist the dominant tendency to present pacifism and responsibility as dichotomies. For these women, responsibility is not an absolute criterion to which a pacifist position must answer; nor is it a worldly commitment shunned by faithful adherence to the gospel. Rather, responsibility is a crucial yet highly contextual consideration in the pacifist life one cannot but live. This article concludes that it is a mistake to utilize responsibility as an external criterion by which to judge pacifism and a mistake to deny the importance of responsibility in a pacifist life. Both of these dichotomous arrangements mischaracterize the lived experience and moral reflection of the interviewees. The question of responsibility is not whether one should be a pacifist, but how to live nonviolently in a violent world.     

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.     

The Changing Circumpolar World for Canada,Quebec, Nunavik,and the Arctic Council

ABSTRACT

Arctic Quebec is one piece of the puzzle comprising the Circumpolar World. In fact, almost one-third of Quebec’s territory lies within the Canadian Arctic. This geographic fact places Nunavik and its people squarely in economic and political affairs swirling around the Circumpolar World, but so far their political involvement has been minimal. This article explores three main themes: the Arctic nature of Nunavik; Nunavik’s place in the political corridors of the Arctic Council, Canada, and the Circumpolar World; and global warming as a link between these topics, because of its impact on the Arctic environment and peoples and because of the growing interest of non-Arctic nations in the Arctic.     

Féministes tant qu’il le faudra! The multiple possibilities of francophone feminist geographies au Québec/Canada

Abstract

This article offers a brief overview of the development of francophone feminist geography in Canada. We begin by situating the review geographically, in order to explain our focus on francophone feminist geography produced in Québec. We then discuss the origins of feminist francophone geography in the 1980s, highlighting the central role of the student reading group, the Collectif de lecture sur l’espace et les femmes, that was formed during that period at l’Université Laval. Tracing the research trajectories of feminist geographical research since then, we argue that feminist geography has become more diverse, but ironically less visible. We conclude by highlighting the central role that graduate and undergraduate students play in pushing forward a feminist geography agenda as they demonstrate the importance of feminist politics era through their research and activism.     

The secessionist spectre: the influence of authoritarianism,nativism and populism on support for Quebec independence

In recent years, Quebec has been undergoing a re‐evaluation of immigration and integration policies. The secessionist Parti Québécois had become the leader of this debate, which also coincided with a rise of right‐wing nativist, populist and sometimes authoritarian movements in other Western societies. This paper aims to evaluate the similarity or dissimilarity of Quebec's nationalism to these other nationalisms. We use the 2015 Canadian Election Study data to explore the influence of authoritarianism, nativism and populism directly on support for secession and also, indirectly, on voting intentions. We find that authoritarianism has a negative influence on support for Quebec independence and independentist parties, while the pattern is the opposite, and the effects somewhat weaker, for nativism and populism. Hence, we argue that Quebec nationalism does not seem to correlate with the right‐wing populist movement extending throughout many Western societies. Thus, Quebec nationalism was shown to be a distinct form of nationalism.     

Teaching “notre littérature”: The Place of la littérature québécoise in the Curriculum in Quebec

Recent calls for a greater emphasis on the teaching of Quebec literature from primary school to cégep once more link the teaching of Quebec literature with the survival of a language and a culture. The current debate echoes those which have taken place over the last 100 years, both under the denominational system of education and since the Révolution tranquille. Different pedagogical and ideological factors have influenced not only whether Francophone Canadian literature has been taught, but also what has been taught and how it has been taught. Anxieties about the status, history and definition of “notre littérature” have recurred throughout the century, as have concerns about the relationship between the literature of Quebec and the literature of metropolitan France. This article will discuss the teaching of literature in Quebec since 1900 to conclude with a consideration of the teaching of Francophone Canadian literature in Quebec today.     

TEMPORAL and SPATIAL VARIABILITY OF CANADIAN INVENTIVE COMPANIES and THEIR INVENTIONS: AN ISSUE OF OWNERSHIP

Inventing is an important prerequisite for industrial economies to remain technologically competitive. Yet it is not well known how inventive companies of domestic or foreign ownership can affect a nation's technological base and, ultimately, its spatial-economic system. The present study examines this relationship in Canada by investigating the performance of its indigenous and foreign-owned inventive companies at the national, subnational, and urban levels. The results indicate that: (1) Canada's indigenous inventive companies are distinct from their foreign-owned counterparts in that they are generally smaller, are more apt to have teams of inventors, are more likely to develop product inventions, have come to manage a greater share of this nation's inventions, and are increasing their role in key Canadian industries; and (2) geographically, Canada's two largest cities and its core region were adversely affected by the declining inventiveness of American-controlled companies during the 1980s. L'esprit ?invention est une nécessité pour que les économies industrielles restent en conditions de concurrence technologique. Cependant, on connaît très peu de la manière que les entreprises inventives de propriété domestique ou étrangère affectent la base technologique ?un pays et, enfin, affectent son système spatio-écono-mique. La présente étude considère ces rapports au Canada au niveau national, sous-national et local, en exminant les performances des entreprises inventives indigènes et étrangères. Les résultats indiquent (1) qu'au Canada les entreprises indigènes et inventives diffèrent de leurs analogues étrangers: en général elles sont plus petites, ont plus tendance à consister en équipes ?inven-teurs, sont plus susceptibles de développer les inventions produites, produisent une plus grande part des inventions canadiennes, et sont en train ?augmenter leur rôle dans les industries canadiennes; et (2) que le déclin de ?esprit ?invention dans les entreprises dirigées par les américains a affecté défavorablement les deux villes les plus grandes au Canada, ainsi que la partie centrale du pays, pendant les années 1980. Mots-clés: invention, Canada, propriétéétrangère, technologie, produit     

‘Wanting the Children and Wanting K2’: The incommensurability of motherhood and mountaineering in Britain and North America in the late twentieth century

The death of British mountaineer Alison Hargreaves, in 1995 while climbing K2 in Pakistan, the world's second-highest mountain, sparked debates in Britain and North America within mountaineering communities and the press. Hargreaves was a contentious figure because she climbed distant, high mountains as the mother of young children, and was thus constructed a ‘bad mother’. Drawing on ethnographic research in Banff, Canada and Nepal in 1999 and 2000, as well as mountaineering and other media, I examine the social anxiety arising over mother-mountaineers, in particular at a mountain film festival in Banff. Hargreaves and American Kitty Calhoun, who was also criticized, were both professional mountaineers and identified themselves as ‘normal working mothers’. I contextualize their maternal subjectivities within the wider public scrutiny over white, middle-class, working mothers at that time, to show how female mountaineers mediated their mountaineering desires within dominant discourses about ‘sacrificial motherhood’, which resulted in ambivalence. Hargreaves wrote in her diary while waiting to climb K2, ‘It eats away at me—wanting the children and wanting K2. I feel like I'm being pulled in two’. I argue that these women were situated at the intersection of two clashing discourses—mountaineering as a journey far removed from home and motherhood as an intensive presence with one's children bound to home.

‘El deseo de niños y el deseo de K2’: la inconmensurabilidad de la maternidad y el alpinismo en Inglaterra y Norte América en los finales de siglo XX

La muerte de la alpinista británica, Alison Hargreaves, en 1995 mientras escaló K2 en Pakistán, el segundo pico más alto del mundo, resultaba en debates en Inglaterra y Norte América en las comunidades de alpinismo y los medios de comunicación. Hargreaves era una figura discutidora porque como una madre con niños pequeños, escalaba montañas altas y lejos, y como consecuencia fue construido como ‘mala madre’. Haciendo uso de medios de comunicación de alpinismo y otros, y una investigación etnográfica in Banff, Canada y Nepal en 1999 y 2000, examino la ansiedad social surgiendo de alpinistas madres, en particular en la festival cine de Banff. Hargreaves y la americana Kitty Calhoun, que fue criticado también, eran alpinistas profesionales y se identificaban ‘madres trabajadoras normales’. Contextualizo sus subjetividades maternales dentro del escrutinio del público a las madres trabajadoras blancas de media clase y muestro como median las alpinistas femeninas sus deseos de escalar dentro de discursos dominantes sobre ‘la maternidad expiatoria’, lo que resulta en ambivalencia. Escribío Hargreaves en su diario cuando esperaba a escalar K2: ‘Me está comiendo—deseando a los niños y deseando a K2. Siento que se me parte en dos’. Argumento que estas mujeres se situaron a las intersecciones de dos discursos en conflicto—alpinismo como un viaje que está muy lejos del hogar y la maternidad como una presencia intensiva con los niños que están obligado al hogar.