Abstract
This paper argues that the Canadian North is a discursive construction, within which German colonial fantasies emerge. In particular, I argue that it is through bordering that colonial fantasies of German Lebensraum ("living space") in the Canadian North are brought into being. I further argue that the German biologist and geographer Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904), with his view of the "organic state," provides the ideological framework for colonial fantasies in the travel writings of Colin Ross.I focus on the writer's colonial imagination and his perception of borders, and on how both relate to the Canadian North. I show that seemingly bare geographical information and demographical data, provided in Ross' travelogues, carry colonial fantasies of German spaces in the Canadian North. Those spaces are bordered by "shared histories" and "narrative boundaries," thus constructing a collective German colonial identity (cf. Eder 2006, 255-257).
Highlights
The Canadian North is a canvas onto which explorers, travelers, artists, and writers project their imaginations
This paper argues that the Canadian North is a discursive construction, within which German colonial fantasies emerge
I argue that it is through bordering that colonial fantasies of German Lebensraum (“living space”) in the Canadian North are brought into being
Summary
The Canadian North is a canvas onto which explorers, travelers, artists, and writers project their imaginations. From the paintings of The Group of Seven to the prose of Margaret Atwood, the Canadian North has been constructed, represented, and articulated by many Canadian artists and authors. It has been conceptualized in a number of different ways indicating a “plurality of ideas of North that are in constant flux yet are persistent over time” (Grace 2007, xii). The various images associated with the North “constitute a system of signification, a discursive representation.” In this system, Shields claims, “places or regions mean something only in relation to other places as a constellation of meanings, that is, the North makes sense only with reference to other regions” (1991, 199). Hodgins and Margaret Hobbs define the North in its “broadest sense,” regarding it as a “territoriality shifting entity and an imaginative construct” (1985, 3)
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