Unsettling the Great White North

Many Canadians tend to imagine themselves as part of the "Great White North," typified by images of snow and wilderness, tropes which reinforce ideologies based on Canadian innocence, "freedom," and a nation founded on British and French European-ness. The presence of enslaved, freed, and migratory persons of African descent in Canada has always presented a potential source of disruption to that image.

An exhaustive volume of leading scholarship in the field of Black Canadian history, Unsettling the Great White North highlights the diverse experiences of persons of African descent within the chronicles of Canada’s past. The book considers histories and theoretical framings within the disciplines of history, sociology, law, and cultural and gender studies to chart the mechanisms of exclusion and marginalization in "multicultural" Canada and to situate Black Canadians as speakers and agents of their own lives. Working to interrupt the myth of benign whiteness that has been deeply implanted into the country’s imagination, contributors use chronological, regional, and thematic analyses to reconsider and uncover new narratives of Black life in Canada.

Exploring topics such as settlement, borders, gender, community development, and labour, Unsettling the Great White North contributes to growing historical scholarship on Blackness in Canada and considers the place of resilience and resistance within the colonial legacies of the Canadian nation.

Michele A. Johnson is a professor in the Department of History at York University.

Funké Aladejebi is an assistant professor in the Department of History at the University of Toronto.