Past Event

[CANCELLED]

American Discourse, Identity, and ‘Belonging’ in Canada

Dr. Susan W. Hardwick
Professor Emerita (University of Oregon)

This presentation explores the migration experiences, shifting identities, and sense of belonging of Canada’s most invisible minority group. Although northward bound Vietnam War-era draft dodgers and war resisters from the US have been studied in some depth by other scholars, very little attention has been paid to date to the story of US-to-Canada borderland flows in more recent decades. This discursive study reports on information gathered and analyzed from narrative interviews, survey questionnaires, field work, and census data on ‘Americans’ in four Canadian cities – Vancouver, Toronto, Halifax, and Montreal.

Preliminary evidence indicates that many US migrants in both Anglophone and Francophone Canadian cities very rapidly embrace Canadian values, attitudes, and identities following their settlement north of the border. The fuzzy transnational identities of this migrant group is surprising due to the close proximity of their place of origin and new site of residence, and the numerous multi-layered socioeconomic, environmental, political, and cultural ties shared by these two neighbouring nation states.

About the Presenter

Dr. Susan W. Hardwick is a Professor Emerita of Geography at the University of Oregon and a Consultant for the National Geographic Society in Washington, DC. She is perhaps best known outside the academy as the moderator of the popular PBS television series, “The Power of Place.”

Professor Hardwick’s teaching and research interests focus on the human geography of the US and Canada; national identity; and North American immigration patterns and issues. She is the author or co-author of a dozen scholarly books, and a long list of journal articles