Mapping Racial and Ethnic Studies in Canada: Retrospective and Prospective Views of Canadian Ethnic Studies Chairs (original) (raw)

Canadian Ethnic Studies, 2019

Abstract

Canada has always been diverse with respect to ‘race’ and ethnicity. In 1901, only three decades after Confederation, the English and French comprised 57% and 31% of the Canadian population respectively (Coats 1931, 134). Thus, 12% of Canada’s population were non-French and non-British with the majority being other Europeans such as German, Dutch, Scandinavian, Russian, and many others. However, quite significantly, 25% of the non-French and non-British were racialized minorities and these included First Nations, Chinese, Japanese, and Blacks. Thus, the claims and discourse of many publications in recent decades of “the changing face of Canada” are based on an imagined early Canada being white, and English and French (deux nations). The early scholarship on Canada’s already established racial and ethnic diversity essentially had a static conceptualization of ethnicity (Burnet 1976) and this was exemplified in the work of Hughes (1943) and Porter (1965, 1975). Jean Burnet’s critique fostered in a more dynamic notion of ethnicity and conceptualized it in terms of social relations. In a special issue of the journal Sociological Focus, which examined studies in Canada, Burnet (1976) examined, through this dynamic lens, the policy of multiculturalism within a bilingual framework. It should be noted that this special issue also featured many other prominent sociologists who examined topics related to immigration, race and ethnicity and these included Crysdale (1976), Clairmont and Wien (1976) and Richmond (1976). That same year Palmer (1976), who was one of the early editors of Canadian Ethnic Studies, provided a comparative analysis of immigration and ethnicity in Canada and the United States. By the late

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