Figuring out this place called home is a problem (87). Why? Why is it so problematic to figure out this place we call home: Canada? Consider this question in context with Chamberlin’s discussion on imagination and reality; belief and truth (use the index).Chamberlin says, “the sad fact is, the history of settlement around the world is the history of displacing other people from their lands, of discounting their livelihoods and destroying their languages” (78). Chamberlin goes on to “put this differently” (Para. 3). Explain that “different way” of looking at this, and discuss what you think of the differences and possible consequences of these “two ways” of understanding the history of settlement in Canada.
It is hard to agree on a definition of home for people from different walks of life with many different experiences and circumstances. How does a person living in one place for his/her entire lives experience the sense of belonging as compared to an itinerant person, or one who moves from place to place because of their job? Moreover, even if that person has had one home for all their life, how would he/she interpret homeland if his/her ancestors came from another land? These are all questions that complicate the definition of home, and therefore, makes it difficult to talk about the range of feelings and thoughts that we attach to the word. However, I do think that it is relevant to broach this topic, even if is only an abstract concept that exists in our imagination, since discussions surrounding the word spring up frequently within Western literature and in the stories of all cultures of the world.
In his book If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground, Chamberlin quotes W. E. H. Stanner’s observation that the word “home” in English is not heavy with meaning like the Aboriginal’s use of the word, which they tend to associate with cultural objects like hearth, totem place, and spirit centre (79). In thinking about land and home as one entity, one must negotiate the contradiction that home is imaginary and land is a reality. But our interpretation of reality is dependent on the way in which our mind synthesizes the physical objects felt through our senses together with the dreams, thoughts, hopes, motives, and expectations formed by our sense of past, present, and future. As a result, the way that we talk about land will inevitably invite the telling of stories about its historic exploitation, its present ownership, and future possibility; our discussion of home conversely must confirm or even reject reality, and so in one way or another, refer to the physical reality of where this sense of home is mapped.
If home is a sense of belonging, then its meaning must embody more than its locality. This discussion of home reminds me of a passage in The Wanderer about how sense of belonging is derived, in which the speaker tells the audience how his wandering has not found him a new home:
“wretched, from there/ travelled most sorrowfully/ over the frozen waves,/sought, sad at the lack of a hall,/ a giver of treasure,/ where I, far or near, might find/ one in the mead hall who/ knew my people, or wished to console/ the friendless one, me,/ entertain (me) with delights.” (24-29)
This poem reveals to us that in the stories we tell about belonging, it is often the people that we find in a place that figure most importantly, and the interactions that forge those emotional connections. Place is given a secondary importance in this definition of home, and while places actively shape the interactions that play out, one might imagine that those interactions, like giving gifts and providing consolation, are so universal that they could have taken place anywhere in the world. Our stories may be flavoured and accented by its locality, but the stories attempt to give significance to our innate and most basic human desires, that of making connecting ourselves to the external world and the people in it. Perhaps it is in appreciating and accepting the universality of the purpose of narratives and their common themes across cultures that we can learn to find common ground, as Chamberlin urges us to do so.
With this in mind, let us re-examine the significance of home in the Canadian context. If stories of home are suppose to give us a way to connect to one another in the country, but our history is one of displacing the Aboriginals and putting them in reserves, these stories are at odds with one another. The current Conservative government is actively promoting the story that Canada was born just 150 years ago, spending millions of dollars to remind citizens of the contributions of Canadians in military exploits and the battles we have fought abroad. This limiting definition of nationhood betray a sense of disunity when these stories are hardly relevant to newcomers and all those who did not participate in the war, and have tenuous links to the land in which we live. Yet the Aboriginal stories focus on stories about the land in such a way that anybody can experience and relate to, because all Canadians live on this land. They use local animals we can see to tell stories of morality and purpose, of how they too give gifts and provide consolation to one another. They use landscapes to talk about the history and future of the place in which we live. The common ground that we want to pursue may lie in talking about the experiences of living in this land in the past, in the present, and in the future.
Works Cited:
“Canada 150” Government of Canada. N.p. n.d. Web. 22 May 2015.
Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2003. Print.
“The Wanderer.” Anglo-Saxons.net. N.p. N.d. Web. 22 May 2015.
Hi!
Loved it! Such poetic use of language and really thoughtful, aware, and enlightened thinking.
Your work reminded me of the quote the text Chamberlin cites from W.E.H Stanner. Stanner wrote that “the aboriginal would speak of “earth” and use the word in a richly symbolic way to mean “shoulder” or his “side” (79). To me, this was a moment when I was reading. I stopped and reflected on the inadequacy of the word ‘home’, ‘land’, or even ‘homeland’ as Chamberlin mentions. I wonder what you think of the word homeland?
As you mentioned, Canadian government promotes the fiction that Canada is 150 years old. I feel the word homeland – or right from the national anthem “our home and native land” reifies this lie. I love language. I wonder if it is time we update our idea of home. It seems a limiting word. What about those that do not have homes? Chamberlin eloquently states that “homelessness haunts us all. One of the reasons we walk so nervously around the homeless on our streets is that we don’t want to get too close to something we fear so deeply” (78).
Brings me back to Chamberlin’s work on settler vs. nomad and the Terra Nullius myth that was propagated by early ‘settlers’ (scare quotes intended) in Canada.
Thanks for your though provoking work. Let me know your thoughts on what I’ve shared.
-Hannah
I in turn thank you for your readership :)!
So what do I think about the word homeland? I think that the word and concept of home implies connection to a place, and so adding land to the word doesn’t really offer much additional meaning. However, homeland seems to suggest a large territory, whereas home is most often used in a local context (of smaller geographic circumference). In my article I tried to redefine home as interactions within a place that are most profound and important to our emotional health. People can move from place to place and call each place their new home because the activities that are performed in the new space remain the same, such as cooking, sleeping, eating, watching TV, and spending time with family. Without those social interactions and daily routines, that place once called home loses its identification as home. Have you heard people refer to a place (eg. school, workplace, library, community centre, swimming pool, ice rink, a friend’s place) as a second home? I believe that the way we refer to things as second home implies that the definition lies within the social and emotional realm of our lives , even more so than the physical.
🙂