Between islands of ethnicity and shared landscapes: rethinking settler society, cultural landscapes and the study of the Canadian west

Jeff Oliver; Ágústa Edwald

doi:10.1177/1474474014561576

Between islands of ethnicity and shared landscapes: rethinking settler society, cultural landscapes and the study of the Canadian west

Jeff Oliver, Ágústa Edwald

Archaeology

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Abstract

This article reviews and rethinks the study of cultural landscapes in the context of western Canadian settlement history. The historiography of scholarship on the colonial period, across a broad array of disciplines, follows themes central to the study of continuity and change in settler societies, including assimilation, cultural revivalism and transnationalism. Influenced by historical conditions particular to the region, namely, the creation of migrant block settlements and a legacy of multiculturalism, research has had a longstanding commitment to an ethnic history paradigm, which tends to orient our understanding of the cultural landscape in terms of what Brubaker and Cooper have called ‘identity history’. We argue that by focusing on relationships rather than boundaries, future research on the cultural dimension of settlement might move beyond ethnic history through investigating the possibilities of shared landscapes and communities of practice, built on the back of finding common material solutions to the problems of agrarian life.

Original language	English
Article number	2
Pages (from-to)	199-219
Number of pages	21
Journal	Cultural Geographies
Volume	23
Issue number	2
Early online date	5 Dec 2014
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474014561576
Publication status	Published - Apr 2016

Bibliographical note

Acknowledgements
This article was written in connection with the project ‘European Migrant Landscapes and Intercultural Relations in Western Canada’ (Principal Investigator J. Oliver), based at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. Help with sources was provided by individuals at a number instituions. In particular we would like to thank Marjory Harper at the University of Abedeen and Dr Birna Bjarndadottir and other staff at the Department of Icelandic Languages and Literature, University of Manitoba. Field work was carried out in both the Interlake
region and southwestern Manitoba. Thanks go in particular to our hosts in Gimli, Elva Simundsson and Jerry Jonason for their excellent hospitality. Earlier incarnations of some of the ideas presented here have benefited from comments received from Audrey Horning, Jim Symonds and Kurt Jordon. We are particularly grateful to Gerald Friesen and Ana Jorge for extensive feedback on earlier drafts. Finally, we would like to thank our peer reviewers for their clear-eyed assessment and useful suggestions, which we hope have helped to sharpen the final product. All errors are our own.

Funding
The research for this article was funded by a Leverhulme Trust Project Grant (RPG-2012-653).

Keywords

cultural landscapes
Canada
ethnicity
historiography
settler society
communities of practice
shared landscapes
Canadian Prairies

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Accepted author manuscript, 1.02 MBLicence: Unspecified

Jeffry Oliver
- School of Geosciences, Archaeology - Senior Lecturer
Person: Academic

Cite this

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title = "Between islands of ethnicity and shared landscapes: rethinking settler society, cultural landscapes and the study of the Canadian west",

abstract = "This article reviews and rethinks the study of cultural landscapes in the context of western Canadian settlement history. The historiography of scholarship on the colonial period, across a broad array of disciplines, follows themes central to the study of continuity and change in settler societies, including assimilation, cultural revivalism and transnationalism. Influenced by historical conditions particular to the region, namely, the creation of migrant block settlements and a legacy of multiculturalism, research has had a longstanding commitment to an ethnic history paradigm, which tends to orient our understanding of the cultural landscape in terms of what Brubaker and Cooper have called {\textquoteleft}identity history{\textquoteright}. We argue that by focusing on relationships rather than boundaries, future research on the cultural dimension of settlement might move beyond ethnic history through investigating the possibilities of shared landscapes and communities of practice, built on the back of finding common material solutions to the problems of agrarian life.",

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note = "Acknowledgements This article was written in connection with the project {\textquoteleft}European Migrant Landscapes and Intercultural Relations in Western Canada{\textquoteright} (Principal Investigator J. Oliver), based at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. Help with sources was provided by individuals at a number instituions. In particular we would like to thank Marjory Harper at the University of Abedeen and Dr Birna Bjarndadottir and other staff at the Department of Icelandic Languages and Literature, University of Manitoba. Field work was carried out in both the Interlake region and southwestern Manitoba. Thanks go in particular to our hosts in Gimli, Elva Simundsson and Jerry Jonason for their excellent hospitality. Earlier incarnations of some of the ideas presented here have benefited from comments received from Audrey Horning, Jim Symonds and Kurt Jordon. We are particularly grateful to Gerald Friesen and Ana Jorge for extensive feedback on earlier drafts. Finally, we would like to thank our peer reviewers for their clear-eyed assessment and useful suggestions, which we hope have helped to sharpen the final product. All errors are our own. Funding The research for this article was funded by a Leverhulme Trust Project Grant (RPG-2012-653).",

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AB - This article reviews and rethinks the study of cultural landscapes in the context of western Canadian settlement history. The historiography of scholarship on the colonial period, across a broad array of disciplines, follows themes central to the study of continuity and change in settler societies, including assimilation, cultural revivalism and transnationalism. Influenced by historical conditions particular to the region, namely, the creation of migrant block settlements and a legacy of multiculturalism, research has had a longstanding commitment to an ethnic history paradigm, which tends to orient our understanding of the cultural landscape in terms of what Brubaker and Cooper have called ‘identity history’. We argue that by focusing on relationships rather than boundaries, future research on the cultural dimension of settlement might move beyond ethnic history through investigating the possibilities of shared landscapes and communities of practice, built on the back of finding common material solutions to the problems of agrarian life.

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Between islands of ethnicity and shared landscapes: rethinking settler society, cultural landscapes and the study of the Canadian west

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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Jeffry Oliver

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