Abstract
ABSTRACTBetween January 2010 and September 2012, Canadians anticipated the possible return of a citizen incarcerated in Guantánamo for approximately a decade. This temporal moment incited narratives about Canadian citizenship and belonging. Narratives, I argue, that are discursively mediated through (and anchored in) the figure of the White Canadian. Khadr’s potential return to Canada is expressed as a perilous racial encounter between white nationals and a foreign racial body. To bring to life this encounter, I draw on three expressions of fear in Canadian national news media. I first trace how narratives of descent, evident in discussions of Khadr’s family and its history, reinforce distinctions between authentic and inauthentic Canadians. Second, I consider how Khadr’s failure to incarnate Canadian values re-produces whiteness and rationality as qualifiers of national membership and belonging. Lastly, I demonstrate how the putatively contagious nature of the Muslim terrorist psyche valorizes racial distinctions between Canadians and Muslims. My work aims to make visible the ideological labor of national news discourse. I think through these representations within the racial politics which structure citizenship and negotiations about what it means to be Canadian.
Published Version
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