Bulletin n. 2/2011
October 2011
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Park Hijin
    Being Canada's national citizen: difference and the economics of multicultural nationalism
    in Social Identities , Volume 17, Issue 5, September 2011 ,  2011 ,  643-663
    Abstract This paper examines the ambivalent positioning of difference in western multicultural nation-states in the neoliberal moment. It does so by analyzing the multiple and contradictory ways that the figure of Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, a Chinese Canadian woman, was utilized in the service of Canadian nation-building. Much heralded as the first racialized minority (and second woman) to be appointed to the highest public position in the land, Clarkson was chosen to represent and define the Canadian nation to itself and to the international community because of, and not in spite of, her difference. Drawing on media and government texts, this paper highlights the narratives that shaped the meaning of Clarkson's appointment as well as the narratives that were negated. The author emphasizes how gender, in addition to class, race and ethnicity, was central to Clarkson's appointment by analyzing how the disassociation between women and Asian capital was key to her ability to speak for us as one of us. In addition to Canadian government and corporate elite courting of Asian capital, gender was also key to the other narratives that could not be spoken, Clarkson's interracial marriage and discourses of miscegenation.
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