I will be discussing question 2, by examining the Indian Act 1876. 

The Confederation which took place in the late 19^th century required loyalty on the part of Canadians. A unified cultural identity was seen as necessary to ensure national unity at a time of great change. The Indian Act of 1876 was a way to eradicate these cultural differences that were seen as a hindrance to nation building.  The act has been described as a type of assimilationist legislation enacted by the Canadian government. They exerted authority over the Indigenous peoples and their lands by attempting to erase cultural, social, economic and political  differences ( “Nationalism, late 1800’s-1950’s”, canlitguides.ca). The act consolidated and expanded upon existing legislation by codifying  prevailing Euro-Canadian cultural attitudes. Which included the belief  that the settlers were superior to the “backward” Indians and felt that it  was “the white man’s burden” to civilize them” (Smith 2). The act impacted on the day-to-day lives of Aboriginal people. They interfered with traditions by banning potlaches, and placing children into residential schools ( “Nationalism, late 1800’s-1950’s”, canlitguides.ca).

Racial classification and Euro-centric paternal ideas played a fundamental part in this act. Racial identity was understood to be based on the patrilineal principle of descent in which “the definition of Indian was decided largely through a person’s relationship with a Native man” (Razack 55). The construction of  “Indian-ness” was seen as an economic necessity  to protect privilege and property. The fixed nature of these constructed identities meant that half-mixed women were excluded from property and legal rights. Their presence marked a threat to the creation of a racial hierarchy as they could cross “racial and sexual boundaries” (Razack 178).  Their absence of legal and spatial rights meant that they existed in “zones of violence”  (Razack 178). These spaces ensured the “naturalness of white innocence and aboriginal degeneracy”  (Razack 178).  Thus, they were falsely seen as sexually transgressive and in need of policing.

Urban spaces such as East Vancouver, re-map these zones of violence through the subordination of Indigenous women.  In East Vancouver, they are separated from society by their blocked social and economic mobility. They face  “social deficits such as inadequate access to counselling services, life skills training, child care,recreation and health care services” (Wallis et al 237).  They also face inequality in terms of gaining employment which results in a large number of individuals living below the poverty line. These socio-economic factors ensure that they remain within the zone, and do not cross the colonial line.  Their invisibility is marked by the normalization of violence against Aboriginal women. The large number of unsolved cases regarding missing and murdered women sadly characterizes this area.

The policies of the Indian Act which placed individuals into distinct racial  categorizations reflects Coleman’s conception of civility.  These categorizations meant that individuals were denied legal rights and socio-economic mobility. They existed in zones which were constructed outside of Canadian citizenship which made violence acceptable (space becomes place through the presence of law). This hidden violence allows white civility to thrive through the forgetting of colonial violence while also quarantining “the uncivil past from the civil present” (Coleman 34). All of these factors allow the white fictive ethnicity of normalcy and privilege to be constructed in opposition to Aboriginal degeneracy.

Works Cited:

CanLit Guides. “Reading and Writing in Canada, A Classroom Guide to Nationalism.” Canadian Literature. Web. June 27^th 2015.

Coleman, Daniel. White Civility: The Literary Project of English Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2008. Print.

Hanson, Eric. “The Indian Act”. UBC Indigenous Foundations. 2009. Web. <http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca>

Hundreds March In Vancouver For Missing & Murdered Women.” Popular Resistance . The Canadian Press , 16 Feb. 2015. Web. 28 June 2015. <https://www.popularresistance.org>.

Razack, Sherene H. Race, Space and the Law. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2002.

Smith, Keith D. Strange Visitors: Documents in Indigenous-Settler Relations in Canada from 1876. North York, Ontario: University of Toronto Press, 2014.

Wallis, Maria, Lina Sunseri and Grace-Edward Galabuzi (2010). Colonialism and Racism in        Canada: Historical Traces and Contemporary Issues. Nelson.

Question 3: In order to address this question you will need to refer to Sparke’s article, “A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation.” Write a blog that explains Sparke’s analysis of what Judge McEachern might have meant by this statement: “We’ll call this the map that roared.”

Before the settlers arrived in Canada, it was assumed that the land was unoccupied, because of the myth that the natives existed in a “state of nature” (Asch 7). Jurisdiction of the land was considered to belong to the settlers. Accordingly, maps were used to legitimize their colonial world through the naming and division of places according to their own beliefs. The maps helped to perpetuate the notion of a “singular national origin” in which Europeans were chapter 1 of the story of Canada (Sparke 468). This version of idealized Canada, was resisted when a cartographic struggle occurred during the  Delgamuukw case in May, 1987. The Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan  people attempted to gain their national sovereignty by re-mapping themselves into the Canadian story. Their efforts were mocked by Judge McEachern who proclaimed: “we’ll call this the map that roared”. It suggests something that seems threatening, but in reality is very ineffectual.

Sparkes analysis of McEachern’s statement illustrates the irony of the situation. The judge was given something that he should have been able to understand,  but instead it  unconsciously betrayed his illiteracy. The map resisted against colonial cartography through its “roaring refusal of the orientation systems, the trap lines, the property lines, the electricity lines, the pipelines, the logging roads, (…) and all other accouterments of Canadian colonialism” (Sparke 468). He could not locate himself within this un-traditional map, and thus refused to understand this performance. His illiteracy can be traced back to the settlers such as Susan Moodies husband  who “daily consulted (the map) in reference to the names and situations of localities in the neighborhood” (np). Both men’s inability to comprehend First Nation cartography reinforces Asch’s notion that we are chapter 15 in this story of the land. It points to the idea that the land was already occupied with people who had their own distinct and developed cultures. For instance, Susan Moodie describes how when the Indians saw the map “they rapidly repeated the Indian names for every lake and river on this wonderful piece of paper” (Np).  It appears that our stories can never be substituted for theirs, and improvements were made when the  Supreme Court of Canada overturned his decision. and ruled that oral history could be used in trials.

The introduction of the map during the trial can be seen as a form of protest that is described by Nancy Peluso as “counter-mapping”. It refers to the appropriation by local groups of mapping  ” to counterbalance the previous monopoly of authoritative resources by the state or capital” (385-386). Peluso, describes how Indigenous groups in Indonesia mapped forest resources in order to  “control representations of themselves and their claims to resources” (387). In all  cases of counter-mapping, the main goal is to destabilize dominant representations.

The project includes a story for each place.

Closer to home, we have started to see counter-mapping take place in the digital world to aid local communities. In Ladysmith, British Columbia, there have been efforts  to map Indigenous ancestral lands on google earth.  For example, the  Stz’uminus Storied Places Project plots names and places of importance in the Hul’q’umi’num’ language. The project aims to aid in the preservation of names and stories  and to assert territorial claims to help solve  an unresolved land claim. The involvement of individuals such as   Stz’uminus First Nation elder Ray Harris ensures that the choices made regarding the maps, is under their control rather than the provinces. Importantly, the accessible nature of these maps through cellphones and computers ensures that the youth will be able to both learn their history and aid in the preservation of their culture.

Works Cited:

Asch, Michael. “Canadian Sovereignty and Universal History.” Storied Communities: Narratives of Contact and Arrival in Constituting Politcal Community. Ed. Rebecca Johnson, and Jeremy Webber Hester Lessard. Vancouver: U of British Columbia P, 2011. 29 – 39. Print.

Hunter, Justine. “Oral history goes digital as Google helps map ancestral lands.” The Globe and Mail. N.p., 11 July 2014. Web. 20 June 2015. <http://www.theglobeandmail.com>.

Moodie, Susanna. Roughing it in the Bush.. Project Gutenburg, 18 January 2004. Web. 18 June 2015.

Peluso, Nancy. “Whose Woods are These? Counter-Mapping Forest Territories in Kalimantan, Indonesia.” Antipode 27.4 (1995): 383-406. Web. 19 June 2015. <https://gisci.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/peluso_whose_woods.pdf>.

Sparke, Mathew. “A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 88.3 (1998): 463- 495. Web. 18 June 2015.

Question 3: We began this unit by discussing assumptions and differences that we carry into our class. In “First Contact as Spiritual Performance,” Lutz makes an assumption about his readers (Lutz, “First Contact” 32). He asks us to begin with the assumption that comprehending the performances of the Indigenous participants is “one of the most obvious difficulties.” He explains that this is so because “one must of necessity enter a world that is distant in time and alien in culture, attempting to perceive indigenous performance through their eyes as well as those of the Europeans.” Here, Lutz is assuming either that his readers belong to the European tradition, or he is assuming that it is more difficult for a European to understand Indigenous performances – than the other way around. What do you make of this reading? Am I being fair when I point to this assumption? If so, is Lutz being fair when he makes this assumption?

In “First Contact as a Spiritual Performance” Lutz describes how both groups (Native and European) relied on their spirituality to make some sort of  sense out each other.  His description of their differing belief systems illustrate that his assumptions regarding how the Indigenous have a better understanding of European performance are evidenced in the contact stories.

The natives believed that there was no barrier between the natural and spiritual world. The arrival of the explorers did not destabilize their beliefs, as they symbolized “the ongoing proof of these beliefs” (Lutz, “First Contact” 38). The inclusion is evident in Nuu-chah-nulth stories that recorded that Captain James Cooks vessels were seen to have come from the sky ;“these were the moon men. They wore yellow, had a brass band in their caps, brass buttons” (Lutz, “First Contact” 36).  Their broad understanding of the world is evident in various accounts told about the same events by different groups. In all of these accounts Europeans were included whether they  were “returned from the land of the dead or peoples from the sky” (Lutz, “First Contact” 38).

Great Chain of Being.

The descriptions of European spirituality differ greatly from those described above. The European belief system contained more rigid categorizations such as the distinction between “sacred and profane” (Lutz, “First Contact” 31). Their individual standing in the world was governed by hierarchies of god, man, animals, plants (Paterson). This is  similar to what we know as the “Great Chain of Being”. The presence of the natives symbolized a challenge to their hierarchical beliefs.  Initially, they tried to make them recognizable by thinking that the Haidi were “forming themselves in a cross as they approached the ship” (Lutz, “First Contact” 39). However, their total reliance on their belief systems meant that the natives were eventually marked as inferior. Their un-Christianity associated with transformer myths meant that they could not be contained within the same imagined category of “man”. They were unfairly seen as “not fully human” and seemingly took the position at the bottom of the great chain of being (Lutz, “First Contact” 40).  The false assumption that natives were irrational dangerously materialized into myths that have been perpetuated today. Furthermore, these assumptions contributed to the idea of  Terra nullius (nobodys land) which was the justification for missionaries and the colonization of Canada.  The supposed empty land, gave them a clean slate to color their ideas with. This very nation is built on their performances of sanitization.

Oka Crisis (1990)

It is evident based on Lutz’s descriptions of European belief systems, that it would be difficult for those of that tradition to understand Indigenous performances. There is too much reliance on ” non-rational spiritual beliefs” to truly see performances with fresh eyes that wouldn’t be subject to categorization  (Lutz, “First Contact” 32). Furthermore,  another problem noted by Lutz is that “we are still in that contact zone”. The “contact zone” which contains a struggle to understand another groups culture will always require translation.  The problem with translators is that they transform ideas “into something that makes sense to us” (Lutz, “Contact” 11). In Canada, the translation of performances is seen as essential in maintaining the story of the “other”.   Paterson succinctly notes, that “we know ourselves through misrepresentations of the other”. News portrayals in Canada of “Indians” illustrate the danger of these translations. For example, the WD4 rule illustrates how Indigenous individuals only make the news if they are a warrior or are drumming, dancing, drunk, or dead.​Shaney Komulainen’s iconic picture during the Oka Crisis (see above) illustrates the warrior complex.  Protests which usually involve conflict and drama are used by the media to misrepresent the Indigenous as the  “uncivilized Indian”. The translation of their performance describes them as a threat to progress in Canada.

Are there any other mistaken representations of Indigenous individuals in the news that are not part of the WD4 rule?

Works Cited:

Great Chain of Being 2 (lighter). 2008. wikimedia . Web. 12 June 2015. <http://commons.wikimedia.org/>.

Prompt: Read at least 3 students blog short stories about ‘home’ and make a list of the common shared assumptions, values and stories that you find. Post this list on your blog with some commentary about what you discovered.

Based on my own experience with immigration, I was drawn to blogs that discussed the concept of multiple homes.  I found that reading these posts has made me more reflective and nostalgic about my move this past year from Vancouver to California.  I definitely feel more of an awareness and a deeper connection to my new home, because of these inspiring stories.

Here are the three blogs that I looked at:

Saarah: “Home is not just a single place or a single person. Home is an ever evolving organism, shifting and changing as you grow older and fall in love with people, places, and moments.”

Saarah’s story of home is very similar to mine. We both had to move to a new country which we initially disliked. We also felt the loss of our previous homes, which symbolized comfort and familiarity, as she misses “the cozy apartment I had left ”. Adjusting, and feeling a sense of belonging takes time, but eventually Saarah began to see Karachi as her new home.I like how  Saarah discusses the bad and good things that occur in Karachi. It seems that the contradictions that occur in a place, make it seem more like a home. The idea of a “home” as  a fluid imperfect entity, reminds us that it is not a tangible object that remains dormant in perfection (eg: houses with white picket fences)

Erica:“I don’t really consider home a place but rather a feeling and for me it is when I am near my loved ones”

I really enjoyed reading Erica’s story of adoption and how this has influenced her understanding of home. She described how her parents and sister are scattered between different countries.  Thus, home to her  is a feeling rather than a concrete place. Like others have mentioned, home can be found within our hearts. Home is where we find happiness and this is usually associated with the memories we create with our loved ones. For me, this is typically fooling around with my sisters in the garden trying to see who can do the best handstands.

Debra: Home is “our own sense of belonging and attributing it not to a single place, but simply places wherein familiarity can be established. “

Debra has had multiple homes as she has moved from Singapore to Vancouver. She discusses the gentrification that  Singapore has undergone: “the park I used to play at is now the home of one of the largest luxury shopping malls in the world”. This concept of gentrification reminds us that home can be constantly changing. Thus, she states that forging home to her is not a problem, as familiarity helps to reconstruct it.  Traditions help in this process as she hosts  gatherings for her Singaporean friends.  For me, an important South African tradition that my family has kept is  “tea time”. Tea time is typically at 10 am, where we would have tea, a cookie, and some sort of fruit. We continued this tradition to Vancouver, and now to California. It helps bind my family and my homes together, and even my friends always ask about “tea time”.

Works Cited:

Cook, Erica. “Home .” Oh Canada! 5 June 2015. Web. 8 June 2015. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/ericacook>.

Ghazi, Saarah. “2.2.” Engl 470: A study in Oh Canada. 4 June 2015. Web. 8 June 2015. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/saarahgeng470/>.

Goei, Debra. “So This is Where I Know is Home.” Oh Canada! An interpretation .  5 June 2015. Web. 8 June 2015. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/debragoei470>.

“Home is often a a place of  refuge, and safety where worldly cares fade and the things and people that one loves becomes the focus” (Korvela 1999)

The pool at the pink house

Before the age of nine, “home” was a static concept to me that was bound to a large pink house in Durban, South Africa.  The bougainvillea bushes in the garden and the sparkling blue pool symbolized the vibrancy of the house. I have fond memories of swimming in that pool while watching a brigade of monkeys run along the top of the fence with babies clinging to their backs. On a sticky hot day in March, my little sister was born at the house, joining the ranks of the baby monkeys who symbolized the youthful spirit of the house. With her birth and my own firsts such as learning to read, to swim, and to play the piano, my attachment to the house continually became solidified.  I felt an unquestionable sense of belonging supported by generations and generations of my family members that were born and raised in South Africa.  I never doubted my identity and felt like a thread permanently  woven into the nations fabric.

Elephants in Zimbabwe. I am wearing the blue dress.

At the age of nine, my conception of home quickly unraveled when I immigrated to Canada with my family. With six suitcases, we arrived in Vancouver leaving behind a high crime rate and poor job market. My parents enthusiastically promised to create a new “home”, but the process of migration created a feeling of in-betweenness, stuck between “there” and “here”. Mentally, I was stuck back at the pink house, still vividly seeing the monkeys dart across my eyes. I remember my first day of school in West Vancouver,  I arrived with a strange accent and a dress not suitable for the weather. I was marked as different and immediately felt like an alien. The new home we moved into was even more alien to me. The grey house was a blank slate, empty of the memories that we weaved in South Africa. The backyard contained large fir trees that housed a mass of black squirrels that continually patrolled the yard.   To cope with my homesickness my dreams quickly became my home and acted as a temporary salvation. I dreamed about the pink house and my grandmother’s farm in Zimbabwe. I would wake up thinking I was back on the farm visiting the elephants, and in the canoe that we would take down the crocodile infested river. Over time with making new friends, the memories in my dreams slowly started to become part of the present. By recreating experiences I felt a greater sense of belonging. The same sense of adventurousness I felt canoeing down the river in Zimbabwe was replicated in the forests of Bowen Island were I would participate in thrilling games of hide and seek.   With new memories, the house slowly came to life. A calendar of South African sunsets in the kitchen  was now intermixed with a hand drawn totem pole that I drew at school.  I think that during this time I began to realize that I could have more than one home. After all, it is a  fluid concept that can be recreated through nostalgia and collective memory. Places are always connected , because “there” is what creates “here”.  

Eagle Harbor, West Vancouver

I think that homes live within us, and like a turtle “wherever I go I carry “home” on my back” ( Anzaldúa). My two homes became three this year when I moved to Laguna Niguel, California. I felt a tremendous sense of ease moving here compared to the momentous move from South Africa to Canada. I think that I realized that identity can always be re-constructed, because it doesn’t remain buried in one place. I felt a sense of belonging immediately, because I continued to do what I enjoyed.  I think that tradition plays a large part in connecting places of importance. In Vancouver I loved to run on the trails that overlooked the Eagle Harbor Yacht  Club. Similarly, in Laguna Niguel I also run on trails. And whenever I am running on the dry terrain and catch a whiff of sea air I am instantly transported back to the  trail in West Van. 

On my favorite trail in Laguna Niguel, California

Works Cited:

Anzaldúa, Gloria. “Excerpts from Borderlands/La Frontera.” WarScapes. N.p., 1997. Web. 5 June 2015.

“Robert Mugabe’s Violent Seizure of White Farms Liberated Zimbabwe’s Agriculture Sector .” International Business Times . Ed. Scoone Ian. N.p., 26 Nov. 2013. Web. 4 June 2015. <http://www.ibtimes.co.uk>.

Waite, LJ, and J Cook. “Belonging among diasporic African communities in the UK: Plurilocal homes and simultaneity of place attachments.” White Rose (2011). Web. 5 June 2015. <http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk>.