Comments on: I’m Looking for Suggestions for BC Ethnographies

By: Tad McIlwraith

Tad McIlwraith — Fri, 13 May 2011 16:22:15 +0000

Amazing work, Michelle. Do you know, have you spoken with Marni Westerman, chair of Sociology and Anthropology at Douglas? (She may have contacted you when you worked at the college.) She’d be really interested in your topic. I suspect you’d have a lot to talk about, particularly given her sociological interests in sexuality. I’d be happy to introduce you – and I’m pleased we’re back in touch. -Tad

By: Michelle Walks

Michelle Walks — Fri, 13 May 2011 04:35:37 +0000

Hi Tad!
Glad it is never too late.
I am working on “Gender Identity and In/Fertility” – or, in other words, experiences and choices of butch lesbians, transmen, and genderqueer individuals in regards to their fertility and infertility. BC is my geographic focus.
Also, Tad, I believe I met you briefly once or twice back in early 2008, when I filled in at Douglas for a short time.
Hope you are keeping well!
-Michelle

By: Tad

Tad — Tue, 10 May 2011 22:24:49 +0000

Thank you for the additional suggestions Michelle. Never too late! Best of luck with your work and please add to the list in the future. I’d like to hear more about what you’re doing too.

-Tad

By: Michelle Walks

Michelle Walks — Tue, 10 May 2011 18:20:28 +0000

Hi Tad!

I know it has been a while since you posted your question, but I find myself looking for non-Indigenous, BC-focused ethnographies/anthropology right now and came across your post.

There are 4 that come to mind, 3 of which I have read (& are recent), and the 4th is Out-Out-Print, and I know the author so am going to try to get my hands on a copy.
In any case, here are the 4:

Jacquelyne Luce’s Beyond Expectation (2010) [304p]
Parin Dossa’s Racialized Bodies, Disabling Worlds (2009) [192p]
Culhane & Robertson’s In Plain Sight (2005) [176p]
Annamma Joy Ethnicity in Canada (1989) [282p] OOP

If Charles Menzies or anyone else has others that come to mind, I’d love to get my hands on more. (Of course, I also hope my current PhD will also be added to this list one day!)

Thanks & good luck!
-Michelle (PhD student at UBCO)

By: Tad McIlwraith

Tad McIlwraith — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 03:28:32 +0000

Thanks for the suggestion of Imagining Difference. It sounds really quite good.

By: J. Murphy

J. Murphy — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 03:13:38 +0000

Here you go, an ethnographic and history of Fernie, BC.
Imagining Difference: Legend, Curse and Spectacle in a Canadian Mining Town Robertson, Leslie
UBC Press,2005.

By: Tad McIlwraith

Tad McIlwraith — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 21:26:05 +0000

Yes, Julie Cruikshank’s work is remarkable and quite accessible. Until now, I’ve been trying to stay in the arbitrary boundary of BC, but as I admit to my students, if you organize the material around culture areas (as it often is), the subarctic extends well beyond BC.

By: Bob Muckle

Bob Muckle — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 19:49:02 +0000

Another ethnography for your list comes to mind: “The Curtain Within: Haida Social and Symbolic Discourse” by Marianne Boelscher-Ignace (UBC Press), based on her dissertation. Probably too difficult for use in an introductory level course though.

By: michael-

michael- — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 18:26:15 +0000

What about Cruikshank’s books?:

2005. Do Glaciers Listen? Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters and Social Imagination. Vancouver: UBC Press

1998. The Social Life of Stories: Narrative and Knowledge in Northern Canada, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press and Vancouver: UBC Press.

1991. Reading Voices: Dan Dha Ts’edenintth’e. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre.

1990. Life Lived Like a Story: Life Stories of Three Yukon Native Elders. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press and Vancouver: UBC Press

By: FieldNotes › Canadian Ethnographies About Non-indigenous People?

FieldNotes › Canadian Ethnographies About Non-indigenous People? — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 17:44:45 +0000

[...] My request for help finding an ethnography to teach in a First Nations of British Columbia anthropology class has generated more than a dozen comments on the blog, via email and through facebook. Since I wasn’t entirely clear that I was looking for an ethnography of an indigenous group or community — but the list that was generated turns out to be exclusively about indigenous peoples — Charles Menzies raised the following question (which I’ve edited only slightly): Can you suggest ethnographies about British Columbia (or Canada) that focus on non-aboriginal peoples? The works should be clearly anthropological as there are certainly books by sociologists, historians, geographers, about non-aboriginal peoples. Where are the ethnographies written by anthropologists set in BC, the Yukon, or Alaska that are not about aboriginal people? [...]