British Columbia because it dominated immigrant lives situated at the edges of both the world eco... more British Columbia because it dominated immigrant lives situated at the edges of both the world economy and a vast, inaccessible land. As distance was struggled with, and slowly overcome, British Columbia was resettled and incorporated within the modernizing world. Something of the ongoing British Columbian relationship with distance is suggested by the following six photographs, all taken from two intriguing recent collections of early photographs reviewed in this issue of BC Studies: Rosemary Neering and
THERE ARE SEVERAL currents tha t combine to form the popular literature about British Columbia &#... more THERE ARE SEVERAL currents tha t combine to form the popular literature about British Columbia ' s history, cul ture , and landscape. These three books emerge from three important tributaries to the general course of non-academic writing about British Columbia. Tungsten John comes from the well stocked shelf of accounts of the discovery and exploitation of a single region by White people. Strictly speaking, Tungsten John is about the N a h a n n i River country, which actually lies just north of the BC-Yukon border, but British Columbia's libraries are full of books just like it about BC locales. Secret Coastline is a kind of outdoor writing that treats local culture as a necessary part of the scenery. It is a sort of picture book without pictures (although it does offer a few obligatory colour photographs of typical Coastal scenes), and there are lots of those books around, too. Bush Telegraph is in the tradition of conventional journalism and attempts to capture something ...
This panel presentation by three contributors to the Indigenous Women and Feminism: Politics, Act... more This panel presentation by three contributors to the Indigenous Women and Feminism: Politics, Activism, Culture collection explores the relationship between Indigenous women and feminist practice in order to take up the following question: what difference does it make to Indigenous women if feminists use the terms sex or gender? Terminology and language debates have raised important issues that women have used to alter symbolic and material social relations and to draw attention to ongoing gender inequalities. For Indigenous women, these debates have also been important to theorizing the erasure of their historical agency, their containment by colonial policies, and their uneasy alliance with mainstream feminism and its goals. Each panelist will explore from her particular perspective how these debates have impacted Indigenous women. Historian Jean Barman will argue that Indigenous women’s behaviours at the time of contact are consistent with feminist practices and principles. Liter...
Historical Studies in Education / Revue d'histoire de l'éducation, Nov 4, 2013
Au cours de la dernière décennie, dans le contexte de la mise en place d'une ambitieuse et, il fa... more Au cours de la dernière décennie, dans le contexte de la mise en place d'une ambitieuse et, il faut bien le dire, controversée, réforme de l'éducation, le Québec a été le théâtre d'une vive querelle portant plus spécifiquement sur la réforme de l'enseignement de l'histoire, une querelle si importante qu'une partie des débats qui y ont eu cours a alimenté les pages des quotidiens et rejoint le grand public. Dans ce débat, le texte d'Éthier, Cardin et Lefrançois (dorénavant : ECL) expose et défend, contre ses détracteurs, quelques-unes des positions cardinales d'une des parties (appelons-la, par commodité, celle des réformistes) contre une autre (appelons-la, toujours par commodité, celle des traditionnalistes). J'y réagirai, pour ma part, non en tant qu'historien ou que spécialiste de la didactique de cette discipline, ce que je ne suis pas, mais en tant que philosophe de l'éducation ayant, pour diverses raisons que j'aurai l'occasion de rappeler ici, pris, dans les débats sur la réforme de l'éducation, une position critique qui m'a amenée à être aussi plutôt critique des transformations que les penseurs tels ECL entendent apporter à l'enseignement de l'histoire. Mon ambition, modeste, n'est donc pas de rejouer les querelles politiques et idéologiques à multiples facettes qui opposent les uns et les autres dans ce dossier-autour de l'histoire nationale, de l'histoire sociale et de l'histoire politique, notamment-mais de tenter de ramener la conversation vers quelques considérations et problèmes philosophiques et pédagogiques centraux qui me paraissent avoir été occultés. Mes réactions, ci-après, seront ventilées en trois moments. Pour commencer, je ferai quelques remarques générales sur le ton de ces débats, que je trouve parfois déplorable, qu'ils aient cours dans les milieux académiques ou sur la place publique. Je voudrais en profiter pour insister sur un de leurs aspects que je trouve particulièrement pernicieux et qui explique sans doute en partie leur ton, à savoir qu'ils présupposent, trop souvent, un faux clivage entre la gauche et la droite, et, ou, entre nationalistes et non-nationalistes (pour employer l'expression la plus neutre possible), qui serait le critère de répartition des positions respectives des protagonistes.
In the summer of 1998 I got a phone call. A local CBC producer invited me to participate in a new... more In the summer of 1998 I got a phone call. A local CBC producer invited me to participate in a new feature being planned for the midday radio show, ‘Almanac,’ heard across British Columbia. ‘In Search of BC’ would have a Monday slot of about ten minutes with six contributors altenating weeks to introduce aspects of the province in their areas of interest. I would be the historian and could talk about what I wanted to each time I was on the air with host Mark Forsythe
to resourcefulness and endurance. Ada Annie Rae-Arthur came to the west coast of Vancouver Island... more to resourcefulness and endurance. Ada Annie Rae-Arthur came to the west coast of Vancouver Island in 1915 determined to get her charming but drink-anddrug-addicted husband Willie away from Vancouver's temptations. Promised financial support by his wealthy sister back home in Scotland, they took up land and built themselves a house at remote Boat Basin in Hesquiat Harbour. In retrospect, they were engaged in an impossible task, as a generation of their counterparts found out in attempting to make a living from recalcitrant land too far away from markets for whatever products they could grow. The couple had, moreover, a family to tend. They came with three children in tow, to which were added eight more born at Boat Basin over the next decade and a half. Margaret Horsfield weaves Ada Annie's story out of gossamer threads. She acknowledges early on: "Ada Annie Rae-Arthur died with her mysteries intact. Much will never be known about her. Her life was largely undocumented." (4). Repeatedly tramping through Ada Annie's world, Horsfield searched out objects of
THE NORTHWEST COAST OF NORTH AMERICA, which extends from today's British Columbia south throu... more THE NORTHWEST COAST OF NORTH AMERICA, which extends from today's British Columbia south through Washington and Oregon, was one of the last areas of the world to be visited by outsiders. It was only during Jane Austen's lifetime, 1775-1817, that this far edge of North America became known in Britain. As far as I can determine, Jane Austen had no direct knowledge of British Columbia. Her lack of awareness is, however, less important than her familiarity with other areas of the world where Britain was similarly engaged. After introducing Jane Austen's outlook and events during her lifetime in Britain and British Columbia, I highlight four aspects of contact that, given the understandings present in her correspondence and writing, she may have found intriguing. I do each through an encounter story based in maritime journals published in England during her lifetime. My intention is to encourage reflection on how Jane Austen might have viewed British Columbia, had she been so ...
British Columbia because it dominated immigrant lives situated at the edges of both the world eco... more British Columbia because it dominated immigrant lives situated at the edges of both the world economy and a vast, inaccessible land. As distance was struggled with, and slowly overcome, British Columbia was resettled and incorporated within the modernizing world. Something of the ongoing British Columbian relationship with distance is suggested by the following six photographs, all taken from two intriguing recent collections of early photographs reviewed in this issue of BC Studies: Rosemary Neering and
THERE ARE SEVERAL currents tha t combine to form the popular literature about British Columbia &#... more THERE ARE SEVERAL currents tha t combine to form the popular literature about British Columbia ' s history, cul ture , and landscape. These three books emerge from three important tributaries to the general course of non-academic writing about British Columbia. Tungsten John comes from the well stocked shelf of accounts of the discovery and exploitation of a single region by White people. Strictly speaking, Tungsten John is about the N a h a n n i River country, which actually lies just north of the BC-Yukon border, but British Columbia's libraries are full of books just like it about BC locales. Secret Coastline is a kind of outdoor writing that treats local culture as a necessary part of the scenery. It is a sort of picture book without pictures (although it does offer a few obligatory colour photographs of typical Coastal scenes), and there are lots of those books around, too. Bush Telegraph is in the tradition of conventional journalism and attempts to capture something ...
This panel presentation by three contributors to the Indigenous Women and Feminism: Politics, Act... more This panel presentation by three contributors to the Indigenous Women and Feminism: Politics, Activism, Culture collection explores the relationship between Indigenous women and feminist practice in order to take up the following question: what difference does it make to Indigenous women if feminists use the terms sex or gender? Terminology and language debates have raised important issues that women have used to alter symbolic and material social relations and to draw attention to ongoing gender inequalities. For Indigenous women, these debates have also been important to theorizing the erasure of their historical agency, their containment by colonial policies, and their uneasy alliance with mainstream feminism and its goals. Each panelist will explore from her particular perspective how these debates have impacted Indigenous women. Historian Jean Barman will argue that Indigenous women’s behaviours at the time of contact are consistent with feminist practices and principles. Liter...
Historical Studies in Education / Revue d'histoire de l'éducation, Nov 4, 2013
Au cours de la dernière décennie, dans le contexte de la mise en place d'une ambitieuse et, il fa... more Au cours de la dernière décennie, dans le contexte de la mise en place d'une ambitieuse et, il faut bien le dire, controversée, réforme de l'éducation, le Québec a été le théâtre d'une vive querelle portant plus spécifiquement sur la réforme de l'enseignement de l'histoire, une querelle si importante qu'une partie des débats qui y ont eu cours a alimenté les pages des quotidiens et rejoint le grand public. Dans ce débat, le texte d'Éthier, Cardin et Lefrançois (dorénavant : ECL) expose et défend, contre ses détracteurs, quelques-unes des positions cardinales d'une des parties (appelons-la, par commodité, celle des réformistes) contre une autre (appelons-la, toujours par commodité, celle des traditionnalistes). J'y réagirai, pour ma part, non en tant qu'historien ou que spécialiste de la didactique de cette discipline, ce que je ne suis pas, mais en tant que philosophe de l'éducation ayant, pour diverses raisons que j'aurai l'occasion de rappeler ici, pris, dans les débats sur la réforme de l'éducation, une position critique qui m'a amenée à être aussi plutôt critique des transformations que les penseurs tels ECL entendent apporter à l'enseignement de l'histoire. Mon ambition, modeste, n'est donc pas de rejouer les querelles politiques et idéologiques à multiples facettes qui opposent les uns et les autres dans ce dossier-autour de l'histoire nationale, de l'histoire sociale et de l'histoire politique, notamment-mais de tenter de ramener la conversation vers quelques considérations et problèmes philosophiques et pédagogiques centraux qui me paraissent avoir été occultés. Mes réactions, ci-après, seront ventilées en trois moments. Pour commencer, je ferai quelques remarques générales sur le ton de ces débats, que je trouve parfois déplorable, qu'ils aient cours dans les milieux académiques ou sur la place publique. Je voudrais en profiter pour insister sur un de leurs aspects que je trouve particulièrement pernicieux et qui explique sans doute en partie leur ton, à savoir qu'ils présupposent, trop souvent, un faux clivage entre la gauche et la droite, et, ou, entre nationalistes et non-nationalistes (pour employer l'expression la plus neutre possible), qui serait le critère de répartition des positions respectives des protagonistes.
In the summer of 1998 I got a phone call. A local CBC producer invited me to participate in a new... more In the summer of 1998 I got a phone call. A local CBC producer invited me to participate in a new feature being planned for the midday radio show, ‘Almanac,’ heard across British Columbia. ‘In Search of BC’ would have a Monday slot of about ten minutes with six contributors altenating weeks to introduce aspects of the province in their areas of interest. I would be the historian and could talk about what I wanted to each time I was on the air with host Mark Forsythe
to resourcefulness and endurance. Ada Annie Rae-Arthur came to the west coast of Vancouver Island... more to resourcefulness and endurance. Ada Annie Rae-Arthur came to the west coast of Vancouver Island in 1915 determined to get her charming but drink-anddrug-addicted husband Willie away from Vancouver's temptations. Promised financial support by his wealthy sister back home in Scotland, they took up land and built themselves a house at remote Boat Basin in Hesquiat Harbour. In retrospect, they were engaged in an impossible task, as a generation of their counterparts found out in attempting to make a living from recalcitrant land too far away from markets for whatever products they could grow. The couple had, moreover, a family to tend. They came with three children in tow, to which were added eight more born at Boat Basin over the next decade and a half. Margaret Horsfield weaves Ada Annie's story out of gossamer threads. She acknowledges early on: "Ada Annie Rae-Arthur died with her mysteries intact. Much will never be known about her. Her life was largely undocumented." (4). Repeatedly tramping through Ada Annie's world, Horsfield searched out objects of
THE NORTHWEST COAST OF NORTH AMERICA, which extends from today's British Columbia south throu... more THE NORTHWEST COAST OF NORTH AMERICA, which extends from today's British Columbia south through Washington and Oregon, was one of the last areas of the world to be visited by outsiders. It was only during Jane Austen's lifetime, 1775-1817, that this far edge of North America became known in Britain. As far as I can determine, Jane Austen had no direct knowledge of British Columbia. Her lack of awareness is, however, less important than her familiarity with other areas of the world where Britain was similarly engaged. After introducing Jane Austen's outlook and events during her lifetime in Britain and British Columbia, I highlight four aspects of contact that, given the understandings present in her correspondence and writing, she may have found intriguing. I do each through an encounter story based in maritime journals published in England during her lifetime. My intention is to encourage reflection on how Jane Austen might have viewed British Columbia, had she been so ...
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