Constructing landscapes of power: the George Etienne Cartier monument, Montreal

The central premise of this article is that the erection of official monuments, the choreography of ceremonies centred on them and the orchestration of public participation around them have been devices by which particular histories and geographies become encoded into landscapes of power and resistance. These ideas are explored through an examination of the monument erected in Montreal in 1919 to honour Sir George Etienne Cartier, a prominent French–Canadian participant in the building of a Confederation of Canada. Particular attention is directed to understanding how a permanent monument complex becomes a dynamic site of meaning in the context of changing concepts of empire, nation and civil society.