Daniel R. Meister Given that Canada is a settler colonial society, it is unsurprising that the lasting metaphor used to describe sociological diversity in the country – that of a mosaic – was popularized by a settler and child of empire: John Murray Gibbon (1875-1952). Gibbon was born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to parents of Scottish descent. Prior to… Read more »
https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/History-Slam-157.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham Full disclosure: I love the Prairies. I used to live in Regina and always found the Prairies an extremely powerful space. As Saskatchewan license plates say, it is the “Land of the Living Skies” and, for as much as people love the vistas offered by mountains, I’ll take a day on… Read more »
Sandy Barron Historians of deaf communities and disability can no longer take for granted that our field cuts across those of race, class, and gender in consistent ways. Although in recent years scholarship and activism have begun to redraw and trouble these distinctions, deaf and disability histories in Canada have only begun to wrestle with the nation’s colonial past and… Read more »
David Webster Pictures are powerful. They can tell strong stories. This post accompanies a new e-dossier that tells the history of a Canadian campaign for international human rights through images (http://historybeyondborders.ca/?p=220). While the full photo history looks at a range of groups that worked for human rights in Timor-Leste (East Timor) when it was under Indonesian military rule in 1975-99,… Read more »
https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/History-Slam-151.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham In the spring of 1893, a murder in Sumas Prairie, British Columbia rocked the community and kicked off a lengthy debate about who committed the crime, multiple trials, and unanswered questions about the legal process in the rural community. The victim, John Marshall, was a Portuguese immigrant who had settled on… Read more »
https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/History-Slam-149.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham June 4 is Tom Longboat Day, which recognizes the life and career of one of the best distance runners to ever represent Canada. Winner of the 1907 Boston Marathon, Longboat is remembered for both his athletic achievements and innovative training methods. From the Six Nations of the Grand River Reserve near… Read more »
https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/History-Slam-146.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham In the midst of the First World War, the Canadian federal government established a program for the internment of Ukrainian Canadians. Since many Ukrainian immigrants arrived in Canada on passports of what were now enemy countries, some government officials believed that confining these people was a necessary precaution. One of the… Read more »
Laura Madokoro In 2005, historical geographer Julie Cruikshank published her widely-acclaimed work, Do Glaciers Listen? : Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters, and Social Imagination (UBC Press) in which she explored the history of environmental change in the Pacific Northwest. She looked specifically at Athapaskan and Tlingit oral traditions to understand glaciers as actors, as sentient beings that “take action and respond… Read more »
Edward Dunsworth For my post this month, I’ve decided to revisit a piece I wrote last year in which I shared some of my favourite history podcasts. As many of us hunker down for extended periods of “social distancing” with the spread of COVID-19, we will be looking for ways to pass the time while at home. And what better… Read more »
Jennifer Tunnicliffe On December 13, 2019, Justin Trudeau sent out a series of mandate letters to his newly appointed Cabinet ministers, outlining their policy objectives for the upcoming session of Parliament. In several of these letters, Trudeau urged initiatives to combat online hate and counter hate speech.[1] Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault was instructed to develop new social media guidelines requiring… Read more »
