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CANADA AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
The Construction
of Canadian Identity
from Abroad
Edited by
Christopher Kirkey
Richard Nimijean
Canada and International Affairs
Series Editors
David Carment, NPSIA, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Philippe Lagassé, NPSIA, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Yiagadeesen Samy, NPSIA, Carleton University, Norman Paterson,
Ottawa, ON, Canada
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Christopher Kirkey · Richard Nimijean
Editors
The Construction
of Canadian Identity
from Abroad
Editors
Christopher Kirkey Richard Nimijean
State University of New York School of Indigenous and Canadian
at Plattsburgh Studies
Plattsburgh, NY, USA Carleton University
Ottawa, ON, Canada
Department of English and American
Studies
Masaryk University
Brno, Czech Republic
ISSN 2523-7187 ISSN 2523-7195 (electronic)

Canada and International Affairs
ISBN 978-3-030-86573-3 ISBN 978-3-030-86574-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86574-0
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For Chris Craibe, Tony Eamer, and David Veenstra (Chris)
For Danita (Richard)
Foreword
On the surface, Canadian identity is all about the unique culture, charac-
teristics, and condition of being a Canadian. Canadian identity is often
conveyed through the many symbols and expressions that set Canada
and Canadians apart from other peoples and cultures, and is frequently
associated with hockey, Tim Hortons, snow, the beaver, and multicultur-
alism. Contributors to this collection are quick, however, to point out
that while these symbols have meaning, identity construction is complex.
Understanding it, holding on to it when one is living and working in
another country, and finding ways to express that identity, are much more
complicated.
A more nuanced understanding of Canadian identity requires an appre-
ciation of the role of shared values, democracy, freedom, tolerance, and
pride. Among those who have written on Canadian culture and iden-
tity, John Ralston Saul stands out. He has argued, both publicly and
in his published works, that Canada has a distinct approach to iden-
tity. Canadians welcome difference, encourage tolerance, and embrace
communitarianism. It is no surprise that section 91 of the British North
America Act, Canada’s founding constitution, promised “peace, order,
and good government” (“paix, ordre, et bon gouvernement” ).
In my view, as a Canadian who has also lived and worked abroad,
Canadians have always agonized over identity, though not, as one might
imagine, from an identity politics perspective. Canada is, in so many
ways, a big tent kind of place. We are the arch-typical middle power, a
vii
viii FOREWORD
people happy not to be a great power but confident and committed to

boxing above our weight in foreign policy and international relations.
We played a larger-than-life role in creating the post-war international
order, championed the United Nations, established NATO, and bought
in entirely to the liberal international order defined by collective security,
collective defense, free trade, the common good, and a commitment to
international organization. Though often romanticized, the golden age
of Canadian foreign policy supported the post-war global order’s norms,
rules, and procedures. As such, this remains a central feature of Canadian
identity.
Another way to look at identity, and one that is very common in
Canada, is to focus not on who we are but who we are not. More specif-
ically, we are not Americans. According to a tongue-in-cheek piece in
the National Lampoon, with an apparent nod to Alfred Adler, it is often
the case that Canadians vacillate between having a haughty superiority
complex concerning our southern neighbor and a discernible inferiority
complex. In Fire and Ice, Michael Adams famously challenges the myth
that the Canadian way of life is doomed to extinction. Based on a moun-
tain of data collected over a decade or more, Adams argued that Canada
and the United States are not coming together but are diverging in signif-
icant ways. Canadians frequently point to social welfare policy and, in
particular, the public healthcare system as a defining characteristic of what
it means to be Canadian.
There is, though, another critical element to Canadian identity. Canada
has long been seen as a country of two nations sharing one state. In Two
Solitudes, writer Hugh McLennan laid bare the conflict between English
Canadians and French Canadians. One might reasonably argue that there
is a French-Canadian identity and an English-Canadian identity. I would
say that identity politics are much more complicated. When one reason-
ably and legitimately considers First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples,
it would seem that Canada is a country with several nations sharing one
state, and not without conflict or consequence.
I learned much from the essays in this collected volume. This is not a
book per se about Canadian Studies, though many of the contributors are
part of the Canadian Studies community. They teach Canadian Studies,
conduct research with a Canadian focus, and live their lives as expatriated
Canadians. This book is a collection of personal and professional accounts
FOREWORD ix
of what it means to be an expatriated Canadian and how one goes about

understanding what it means to be a Canadian. It is a series of vignettes, if
you like, offered by Canadians living and working abroad who have tried
to understand how they construct their identity. It is about how they see
themselves and how they present themselves to others.
The contributors are all Canadians who are either living abroad or
recently repatriated. Some can “see Canada from their window” to
borrow a phrase. Chris Kirkey directs the Center for the Study of Canada
at the State University of New York (SUNY) College at Plattsburgh.
Christina Keppie directs the Center for Canadian-American Studies at
Western Washington University in Bellingham, and Munroe Eagles is
the academic director of the Canadian Studies program at the University
at Buffalo (SUNY). Others are much farther afield, both physically and
culturally. Richard Nimijean is living and working in Switzerland, Jason
Blake is teaching in Slovenia, and Athanasios Hristoulas is at the Insti-
tuto Tecnológico Autónomo de México. Whether near or far, identity,
like culture, is both complex and deeply personal.
This collection of essays takes a fresh, compelling, and thoroughly fasci-
nating look at Canadian identity through the lenses of Canadians living
abroad. These expats have a unique perspective on being Canadian, as
their identity is conditioned not only by who they are but where they are.
The introductory chapter by Kirkey and Nimijean, the organizers and
editors of this book volume, is especially instructive as they are themselves
expatriates. As they correctly note, expats struggle with their identity,
always trying to understand the relationship to their homeland and their
new home. For some, this heightens the sense of being Canadian and
encourages the expat to explain what it means to be Canadian. I will
never forget the many times in Japan that I was asked if I knew “Anne”
of Anne of Green Gables fame? For others, though, it is more complex as
they try to navigate belonging while maintaining their Canadian identity.
This is a book about being a Canadian abroad and about Canadian
Studies but it is also a book about identity that offers a fascinating take on
being Canadian, often from a very personal perspective while, at the same
time, offering a very sophisticated and nuanced understanding of what it
means to be an expat and how “being there,” as novelist Jerzy Kosiński
has famously shown us, plays a critical role in shaping one’s views and
challenging one’s identity.
For those of us who have lived abroad, and for everyone who would
benefit from that experience, the examination of one’s identity is ongoing.
x FOREWORD
This collection, and the insights found in each of the essays, is a

must-read. Each provides a glimpse into that looking glass, helping us
understand how we see the world, see ourselves, and understand and
come to terms with our identity.
June 2021 Michael K. Hawes

President and CEO
Fulbright Canada
Ottawa, Canada
Preface
The immediate origins of this book arose out of a conversation between

close friends at a café in Prague during the Central European Association
for Canadian Studies conference in September 2018. Richard, the driving
force behind this initiative, explained that he had started a research project
on how moving to Switzerland affected his professional work in Canada
and his family’s sense of Canadian identity. Presenting on this subject
to the Association Française d’Études Canadiennes conference that year,
colleagues raised two important questions. First, while the story was inter-
esting, how could this phenomenon be understood academically in the
context of Canadian Studies? Second, what had other Canadians abroad
thought about these issues? As Chris had spent most of his professional
life outside Canada and had been deeply involved in international Cana-
dian Studies in both scholarly and leadership roles, why not work together
on a volume committed to examining Canada from the perspective of
expatriate Canadian scholars?
This initial discussion, followed by further direct working exchanges
(in Washington D.C., Łódź, Poland, and other venues), phone and
Zoom conversations, and email exchanges, led us to conclude that a book
project, intellectually and thematically focused on the construction of
Canadian identity by Canadian scholars who were currently living beyond
xi
xii PREFACE
the borders of Canada (or who had previously done so for an extended
period), had significant scholastic merit. The longer-term background to
this initiative lies in a mutual friendship of some twenty-five years, one
that is intimately anchored in a joint desire to analytically explore any and
all things significant to Canadian life—past, present, and future.
It is a truism that expatriates often “discover” their nationality—and
what makes their home special—when living abroad. Tim Hortons and
Molson Coors, among other public and commercial enterprises, have
successfully tapped into this theme in their advertising, appealing to
the many Canadians who have traveled and often live abroad. Whether
such constructed identities reflect the complexity of Canadian iden-
tity is open to debate but being abroad—especially for an extended
period—undoubtedly affects one’s sense of home.
This edited book, The Construction of Canadian Identity from Abroad,
features Canadian scholars who write and think deeply about home
from outside Canada’s borders. What happens when that Canadian is a
scholar whose teaching, research and scholarship, professional develop-
ment, and/or community engagement focus directly on Canada? How
does being abroad affect how we interpret, construct, and present Canada
in our professional work? Does being an expat impact how one relates to
and understands Canada? What are our challenges? What are our opportu-
nities? Does being an expat Canadianist affect how one deals with Canada
academically and professionally?
This manuscript features Canadian academics—both early career
and senior scholars from the humanities and social sciences—repre-
senting sixteen academic institutions across six countries. They either live
abroad or have recently returned to Canada following an extended period,
and are engaged directly with these issues.
The book’s core focus is the examination of how “externality” affects
how scholars intellectually approach, construct, and identify with Canada.
The Construction of Canadian Identity from Abroad is not an exhaustive,
biographical profile of the work of a collective group of individuals on
Canada, nor is it designed to be a historic survey of Canadian Studies
or related disciplines in any host country or at any specific academic
institution. Rather, the book is explicitly designed to provide compre-
hensive coverage of the forces that shape and determine the construction
PREFACE xiii
of Canadian identity for Canadian scholars working beyond Canada’s

borders.
Plattsburgh, USA Christopher Kirkey

Bottmingen, Switzerland Richard Nimijean
Acknowledgments
The realization of this book would not have been possible without the
direct and indirect support of colleagues, friends, and family. Irene Bloem-
raad and Richard Rhodes, co-directors of the Canadian Studies Program
at the University of California, Berkeley, gratefully agreed to partner with
us early in this project, offering to host and support an authors’ workshop,
scheduled for May 2020. Despite the investment of much time and effort,
we regrettably had to forgo their generous hospitality as the COVID-19
pandemic scuttled any attempt to move forward with the workshop. Anca
Pusca, Executive Editor of International Studies at Palgrave Macmillan,
consistently demonstrated a sharp interest and support for our initiative.
We also wish to extend our appreciation to David Carment of Carleton
University who, as the editor of Canadian Foreign Policy Journal and
Palgrave Macmillan’s Canada and International Affairs scholarly series,
championed the development and publication of this book. Hemapriya
Eswanth, Project Coordinator at Springer, graciously worked to keep us
on track and to ensure that we worked to include all required materials for
the manuscript. Callie Dow, an undergraduate student at State University
of New York College at Plattsburgh, ably assisted in compiling the prelim-
inary index to this volume. Finally, we wish to express our gratitude to
the anonymous external reviewers employed by Palgrave Macmillan; their
collective insights and suggestions resulted in a much better final product.
We acknowledge the centrality of our contributors to this volume.
In short, they did well in responding to a tough ask—academics love
xv
xvi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
research and scholarship but are often uncomfortable thinking, let alone
writing, about their own professional pathways. Moreover, the very nature
of the project—and the fact that we all have different expat experiences—
confirmed our belief that this was an intensely personal issue but also a
valid intellectual exercise worth pursuing. Andy Holman summarized it
best—“I’ve been thinking about these issues for a long time but never
had an opportunity to think them through.” Thus, this volume is truly
a collective effort in navigating an important unexplored area of Cana-
dian Studies that will contribute to a re-emerging debate about the role
of expats in Canadian life. We are deeply thankful to our colleagues.
The realization of this book represents nothing short of a labour
of love for both of us. For Richard, this project would never have
happened if it were not for Danita Pattemore, whose career path led us
to Switzerland and to whom I dedicate this work. The boys—Alexander
and William—growing up in a foreign country while remaining fiercely
attached to Canada, have provided insights into Canada that I could
never have imagined. I wish to acknowledge my Carleton University
colleagues, who provided support in many different ways: the students,
faculty, and staff of the School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies;
former Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences John Osborne;
current Dean Pauline Rankin; and Provost and Vice-President (Academic)
Jerry Tomberlin. I want to give a shout-out to all my Swiss friends who
were, in many ways, the inspiration for this project. Finally, I want to
thank Chris for being a brilliant partner on this project—it has been a
thoroughly enjoyable and collaborative effort, and hopefully not the last
one.
The roots of this book, for Chris, are squarely anchored in the
nurturing world of family and friends that populated the most northerly
corner of Cornwall, Ontario—an area known as Eamer’s Corners—in the
1960s and 1970s. It was here that a love of Canada first emerged, was
unsuspectingly nurtured, and as an expatriate of nearly thirty-five years,
firmly remains. This work is dedicated to the best childhood and life-
long friends one could ever ask to walk alongside—Chris Craibe, Tony
Eamer, and David Veenstra, all proud Canadians. Who knew that all
those adventures we shared years ago—many of which remain unfit for
public consumption—would instill in me an unshakable sense of national
identity. And to Richard, thank you for allowing (and trusting) me to
collaborate with you on what has proven to be a wonderful intellectual
journey.
Contents
Part I Introduction: The Construction of Canadian

Identity from Abroad
1 Spatial Dislocation, Canadian Expats, and National
Identity 3
Christopher Kirkey and Richard Nimijean
Part II Exile, Scholarship, and Rethinking Canada and

the Canadian Identity
2 Exile in America: Rendering Canadian History
from the Margins 25
Andrew C. Holman
3 In the National Interest: Teaching About Canada
and the Environment 47
Claire Campbell
4 Expatriate Scholarship in the Field of Canadian
Studies: Gaining New Perspectives from a More
Distant Vantage Point 69
Andrew Ives
xvii
xviii CONTENTS
Part III Multiple Layers of Externality

5 Race, the University, and Social Transformation 89
Debra Thompson
6 Teaching Indigenous Canada: Learning
from “Externality” 107
Bernard C. Perley
7 Bringing Sexy Back: The Other 125
Christina Keppie
Part IV Remaining Unmoored—Externality and

Uncertainty
8 Stranger, Expat, Immigrant: The Comparative
Advantage, and the Challenges, of Indifference
and Authenticity 149
Irene Bloemraad
9 Spatial Dislocation and Canadian Studies, or Thinking
About Canada 6000 Kilometres from Home 167
Richard Nimijean
10 “Proving Canada”: A Canadian Writer in the American
Academy 205
Steven Hayward
11 Lost in the Heart of Europe: Doing Canada Among
the Czechs 217
Don Sparling
Part V Disciplinary Focus and the Question of

Externality
12 Reading and Teaching Canadian Literature in Slovenia 243
Jason Blake
13 Critical Distance: Unsettling Canada from Abroad 263
Julie Burelle
14 Systems of Canadian Studies: A Personal View 279
Patrick James
CONTENTS xix
15 Cha(lle)nging Representations of Canada in Italy 301

Anne Trépanier
Part VI Externality and Canadian and Professional

Identities
16 Reflections from (the Very Near) Abroad: Being
Canadian in the Canada/U.S. Borderlands 321
Munroe Eagles
17 Living and Working in Mexico as a Canadian: Not so
Difficult as One Would Think 339
Athanasios Hristoulas
18 Peering Northward to Construct Canadian Identity:
Why Canada? 359
Christopher Kirkey
Index 375
Notes on Contributors
Jason Blake is a Professor in the University of Ljubljana’s English

Department. He is the author of Canadian Hockey Literature, co-editor
(with Andy Holman) of The Same but Different: Hockey in Québec,
and the author of Culture Smart Slovenia. As well, he has contributed
to Im Ausland Leben für Dummies (“Living Abroad for Dummies”).
He is the editor-in-chief of the Central European Journal of Canadian
Studies/Revue d’Etudes Canadiennes en Europe Centrale.
Irene Bloemraad (Ph.D., Harvard; M.A. & B.A., McGill University)
is the Class of 1951 Professor of Sociology and the Thomas Garden
Barnes Chair of Canadian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
She is also the founding director of UC-Berkeley’s Interdisciplinary
Migration Initiative and co-director with Will Kymlickaof the “Bound-
aries, Membership and Belonging” program at the Canadian Institute
for Advanced Research. An internationally recognized expert on immi-
gration, Bloemraad is a political sociologist who studies how migrants
become incorporated into the political communities where they live,
and the consequences of migration for politics and understandings of
membership. She is the author or co-editor of five books and she has
published over 40 research articles in journals spanning sociology, polit-
ical science, history, and ethnic/migration studies. Bloemraad is a proud
product of the Saskatoon public school system.
xxi
xxii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Julie Burelle is a Dramaturg and an Assistant Professor in the Depart-

ment of Theatre and Dance at the University of California, San Diego.
Originally from Québec, Canada, her research investigates Indigenous
theatre, performance, and storytelling in the particular settler context of
Québec. She is the author of Encounters on Contested Lands: Indigenous
Performances of Sovereignty and Nationhood in Québec (Northwestern
University Press 2019), and her work appears in TDR: The Drama
Review, Theatre Forum, Theatre Annual: A Journal of Theatre and Perfor-
mances of the Americas, Dance Research Journal, Jeu: Revue de Théâtre,
Revue Liberté, as well as in a number of edited volumes.
Claire Campbell is an Environmental Historian of Canada and the North
Atlantic world. She has written extensively on historic landscapes as sites
of public as well as environmental history, while her current research
considers Canada as a coastal nation and the presence of water—fresh
and salt—in Atlantic cities. Since 2013 she has lived in a small town in
central Pennsylvania where she teaches widely in Canadian and environ-
mental history, to American undergraduates generally meeting both for
the first time.
Munroe Eagles is a Professor and Chair of Political Science at the Univer-
sity at Buffalo—State University of New York, where he has taught since
1989. Prior to coming to UB, he taught for three years at Saint Mary’s
University in his native Nova Scotia. He has a Ph.D. in Political Science
from the University of California, Irvine, an M.A. from Queen’s Univer-
sity in Kingston, ON, and a B.A. (Honours) from Acadia University in
Nova Scotia. While at UB he has served almost a decade as an Asso-
ciate Dean and eight years as Director of the Canadian Studies Academic
Program. He is the Past President both of the Association of Canadian
Studies in the United States (ACSUS) and the International Council for
Canadian Studies (ICCS).
Andrew C. Holman was born and raised in St. Catharines, Ontario, and
educated at McGill, McMaster, and York universities. He is Professor of
History and Director of the Canadian Studies Program at Bridgewater
State University in Massachusetts, where he has been teaching since 1996.
Since 2019, he has served as co-editor (with Brian Payne) of the American
Review of Canadian Studies.
Athanasios Hristoulas has served as a Professor of International Rela-
tions at the Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico since 1996. He is
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xxiii
also the Director of its National Security program. He received his Ph.D.
in Political Science from McGill University in 1995. Before relocating
to Mexico, he was the “Military and Strategic Post-Doctoral Fellow” at
the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton Univer-
sity in Ottawa, Canada. He is a member of the editorial committee of
Foreign Affairs en español and is a founding member of the Mexican
think-tank CASEDE (Committee for the Analysis of Security and Democ-
racy). He is a member of the National System of Researchers, Level II.
He is regularly invited by the Mexican Senate, Navy, Army, and intelli-
gence service to be a consultant and guest speaker. His principal research
interests include Mexican national security and North American security
cooperation. He is presently conducting a cross-national study of 166
countries—which examines the linkage between democracy and reform
of the national security sector. He also produces and hosts the podcast,
The Security Perimeter.
Steven Hayward born and raised in Toronto, is the author of four books,
including the Canadian national bestseller, Don’t Be Afraid. A frequent
contributor to publications on both sides of the border, he is Professor of
English and Director of the Journalism Institute at Colorado College.
Andrew Ives teaches North American Studies at the University of Caen
Normandy. He has co-authored a book on the American Republican
Party and published numerous articles on Canadian and American polit-
ical history, and in the field of history of ideas. He is an active member of
the French Association of Canadian Studies.
Patrick James Dornsife Dean’s Professor of International Relations at
the University of Southern California, is the author or editor of over
30 books and more than 160 articles and book chapters. Among his
honors and awards are the Louise Dyer Peace Fellowship from the
Hoover Institution at Stanford University, the Thomas Enders Professor-
ship in Canadian Studies at the University of Calgary, a Senior Scholar
award from the Canadian Embassy, Washington, D.C., the Quincy
Wright Scholar Award from the International Studies Association (ISA)
(Midwest), Beijing Foreign Studies University Eminent Scholar, Lenna
Professor at St. Bonaventure University, Eccles Professor of the British
Library, and Ole R. Holsti Distinguished Scholar of the ISA (West). He
served as President of the Association for Canadian Studies in the United
States (2007–2009), President of the International Council for Canadian
xxiv NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Studies (2011–2013), President of the Peace Science Society (2016–17),

and President of the International Studies Association (2018–19).
Christina Keppie is a Professor of French and Linguistics at Western
Washington University. She teaches undergraduate courses in Canadian
French phonetics, sociolinguistics, Acadian culture, and French Cana-
dian language and society. Born and raised in New Brunswick, Canada,
to immigrant American parents, Christina has been fortunate to live life
as a dual Canadian-U.S. citizen, which has been most obvious in her
phonetic, morpho-syntactic, and lexical variation. Her research focus takes
her to the east coast where her training in anthropology and ethnog-
raphy has helped shape her investigation into the role of cultural festivities
in Acadian cultural identity and the ethnolinguistic vitality of French
speakers in Northern Maine. Currently, Christina is the Director for the
Center of Canadian-American Studies at Western Washington Univer-
sity where she oversees a United States Department of Education Title
VI National Resource Center grant on Canada in consortium with the
University of Washington.
Christopher Kirkey is a Political Scientist and Director of the Center
for the Study of Canada and the Institute on Québec Studies at State
University of New York College at Plattsburgh and serves as President of
the Association for Canadian Studies in the United States (ACSUS).
Richard Nimijean is a Political Scientist in the School of Indigenous
and Canadian Studies at Carleton University, Ottawa and a Visiting
Professor in the Department of English and American Studies at Masaryk
University in Brno, Czech Republic. His research and teaching focus on
the branding of Canada, the politics of the brand state, the relation-
ship between Canada’s role as a global actor and the Canadian identity,
Canada–U.S. relations, and approaches to the study of Canada. He is a co-
editor, with David Carment, of Canada, Nation Branding and Domestic
Politics (2019: Routledge) and Canada Among Nations 2020: Political
Turmoil in a Tumultuous World (2021: Palgrave Macmillan).
Bernard C. Perley is the Director of Critical Indigenous Studies at the
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He is a Maliseet from
Tobique First Nation, New Brunswick, Canada. His work on Indige-
nous language endangerment and revitalization emphasizes a multimodal
and integrated approach toward language life as “emergent vitalities.”
His monograph Defying Maliseet Language Death: Emergent Vitalities
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xxv
of Language, Culture, and Identity in Eastern Canada (University of

Nebraska Press, 2011) is a critical assessment of language experts’ rhetoric
on language endangerment and extinction. Perley’s research and advocacy
are dedicated to empowering Indigenous communities to ensure possible
futures for their heritage languages.
Don Sparling attended the University of Toronto and Oxford Univer-
sity. After coming to Czechoslovakia in 1969 he lived and taught in Brno
and Prague, first at language schools and from 1977 at the Department of
English and American Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, where he taught
courses in Canadian and American literature and cultural studies and was
twice Chair. From 2000 to his retirement in 2009, he was Director of
the University’s Office for International Studies. Founding President of
the Central European Association for Canadian Studies, he is currently its
Treasurer. Co-author of ten English-language textbooks and author of the
cult handbook English or Czenglish: How to Avoid Czechisms in English,
he has also published numerous articles dealing with Canadian litera-
ture (historical fiction), multiculturalism, Indigenous studies, and cultural
semiotics.
Debra Thompson is an Associate Professor of Political Science at McGill
University, specializing in race and ethnic politics. Her award-winning
book, The Schematic State: Race, Transnationalism, and the Politics of
the Census (Cambridge University Press, 2016) is a study of the polit-
ical development of racial classifications on the national censuses of the
United States, Canada, and Great Britain. She is currently writing two
book projects: the first explores the transnational dynamics of the Black
Lives Matter movement, and the second, co-authored with Keith Banting
(Queen’s University) analyzes the puzzling persistence of racial inequality
in Canada.
Anne Trépanier is a Historian from Québec City and Associate Professor
in the School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies at Carleton Univer-
sity since 2009. She sees her role as building intellectual and under-
standing bridges between the “two solitudes” in a multifaceted Canada.
A Teaching Fellow at Carleton University and a D2L award winner,
she is a passionate teacher who enjoys spending her professional and
personal energies promoting both rigorous critical thinking and intuitive
approaches to learning. Anne holds a Master’s degree in French language
and literature (McGill University), a Master’s degree in political studies
xxvi NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
(EHESS, Paris), a Ph.D. in Canadian History (Laval University), and she

completed a post-doctoral fellowship (CIRCEM, University of Ottawa).
Under the leadership of Cammie McAttie and Réjean Legault, she did
research in the Canadian and Italian archives for the National Gallery of
Canada to help prepare the international exhibition at the Venice Biennale
Canada Builds/Rebuilds a Pavilion in Venice.
Abbreviations
AAA American Anthropological Association

ACSUS Association for Canadian Studies in the United States
AMEC Asociación Mexicana de Estudios Canadienses
B.A. Bachelor of Arts
BBC British Broadcasting Corporation
BC British Columbia
BES Binational Executive Seminar in Canadian-American Relations
BNA Act British North America Act (The Constitution Act, 1867)
CAD Canadian Dollar
CANAM Canadian-American
CAS Canadian Studies
CASCA Canadian Anthropology Society/La Société Canadienne
d’Anthropologie
CBC Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
CEACS Central European Association for Canadian Studies
CETA Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement
CHA Canadian Historical Association
CIRRICQ Centre interuniversitaire des relations internationales du Canada
et du Québec
CIS Institute for Critical and Indigenous Studies
CNN Cable News Network
COVID-19 Coronavirus Disease 2019
CSAP Canadian Studies Academic Program
DACA Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
DNA Deoxyribonucleic Acid
DVD Digital Video Disc/Digital Versatile Disc
xxvii
xxviii ABBREVIATIONS
EDI Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

ÉNAP École nationale d’administration publique
ENCS European Network for Canadian Studies
EU European Union
FNEL First Nations and Endangered Languages Program
FNIS First Nations and Indigenous Studies Program
GERIC Groupe d’études et de recherche sur l’international et le Québec
GKS Association for Canadian Studies in German-Speaking Countries
GTA Greater Toronto Area
IC International Cultures
ICCS International Council for Canadian Studies
INS Immigration and Naturalization Service
IR International Relations
IRB Institutional Review Board
ISA International Studies Association
ITAM Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México
K-12 Kindergarten to Grade 12
LCBO Liquor Control Board of Ontario
LGBTQ Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning (or Queer)
M.A. Master of Arts
M.F.A. Master of Fine Arts
MANECCS Middle Atlantic & New England Council for Canadian Studies
MMIWG Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
MRI Magnetic Resonance Imaging
NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement
NAISA Native American and Indigenous Studies Association
NAS New Area Studies
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NCAA National Collegiate Athletic Association
NEH National Endowment for the Humanities
NEP National Energy Program
NGO Non-Governmental Organization
NHL National Hockey League
NORAD North American Aerospace Defense Command
NS Nova Scotia
Ph.D. Doctor of Philosophy
PMO Office of the Prime Minister (Prime Minister’s Office)
PTA Parent–Teacher Association
PWI Predominantly White Institutions
SMU Saint Mary’s University
SOGI Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
SPP Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America
SSHRC Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
ABBREVIATIONS xxix
SUNY State University of New York

SVP Swiss People’s Party
TRC Truth and Reconciliation Commission
U.S. United States
U.S.S.R. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
UB University at Buffalo, State University of New York
UBC University of British Columbia
UC University of California
UCSD University of California, San Diego
UN United Nations
UNSC United Nations Security Council
UQÀM Université du Québec à Montréal
USA United States of America
USCIS United States Citizenship and Immigration Service
WWU Western Washington University
List of Figures
Fig. 9.1 Canada’s landmass compared to Switzerland’s (Source

With permission https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/
country-size-comparison/canada/switzerland, accessed
October 15, 2020) 174
Fig. 9.2 2016 referendum poster on the expulsion of criminal
foreigners 184
Fig. 9.3 2017 referendum poster on citizenship changes
for immigrants 185
Fig. 9.4 2021 referendum poster on banning face coverings 186
Fig. 9.5 Householder declaring “No to Islamism” in the 2021
referendum on banning face coverings 187
Fig. 14.1 The early career of Alice Munro as a literary system 290
Fig. 14.2 Institutional imbalance 291
Fig. 15.1 Coffee product on sale in Naples 303
Fig. 15.2 Performance by Indigenous activist Eriel Deranger 311
Fig. 15.3 1956 Map of the Canadian Pavilion 312
xxxi
List of Tables
Table 14.1 Systemist notation 289

Table 14.2 Distributions for variable types 292
xxxiii
PART I
Introduction: The Construction of Canadian

Identity from Abroad
CHAPTER 1
Spatial Dislocation, Canadian Expats,

and National Identity
Christopher Kirkey and Richard Nimijean
A few decades ago, corporate Canada tapped into a burgeoning sense

of Canadian pride for commercial purposes. The book chain Indigo (later
Chapters Indigo), for example, has long championed a campaign emphat-
ically declaring that “the world needs more Canada,” even publishing a
book with that title (Reisman 2017) to celebrate Canada’s 150th anniver-
sary. Companies such as Roots (Carstairs 2006), Molson, with its “I. AM.
CANADIAN!” campaign (Seiler 2002), and Tim Hortons, with its “True
C. Kirkey (B)
Center for the Study of Canada, State University of New York at Plattsburgh,
Plattsburgh, NY, USA
e-mail: kirkeycj@plattsburgh.edu
R. Nimijean
School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON,
Canada
e-mail: richard.nimijean@carleton.ca
Department of English and American Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech
Republic
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 3

Switzerland AG 2022
C. Kirkey and R. Nimijean (eds.), The Construction of Canadian Identity
from Abroad, Canada and International Affairs,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86574-0_1
4 C. KIRKEY AND R. NIMIJEAN
Stories” campaign (Cormack 2008), appealed to Canadian consumers’

hearts to increase sales through emotionally appealing advertising by
using widely recognized symbols of Canadian national identity.
Such ad campaigns later began highlighting Canadian expatriates
(expats)—Canadian citizens who live or work in other countries—who
miss home. For example, a 2003 Tim Hortons commercial, “Missing
Home,”1 based on the experience of David Mole, a Canadian exchange
student studying at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, reminded
Canadian consumers that “home” should have a special meaning. In the
ad, David says that while Scotland is great, “You don’t know how much
you miss home until you’re away from it.” Despite turning his room
into an unofficial Canada club on campus, “It still didn’t feel completely
Canadian yet.” So, he writes to Tim Hortons, which sends him coffee.
David concludes: “There are some things that just say home.” Mean-
while, in 2013, the Molson Coors beer company revived themes from its
decade-old “I. AM. CANADIAN!” campaign with the “red beer fridge”
promotion. In it, a loudly decorated refrigerator stocked with Molson
beer is transported abroad, but can only be opened with a Canadian pass-
port. Rethink, the company that developed the campaign, stated, “We
wanted to elicit pride in Canadians. But sometimes, you’re most proud
of where you’re from when you’re away from home. That’s why we built
a custom beer fridge and took it across Europe. The only way to open
it? A Canadian passport.”2 Together, Tim Hortons and Molson Coors
acknowledged the powerful sense of connection many Canadian expats
have for their home country, and the popularity of the campaigns suggests
that the message resonated with Canadians at home as well. Indeed, “the
red beer fridge” campaign won a national advertising award and sparked
an increase in beer sales (Krashinsky 2015). For a fleeting moment, these
ads brought Canadian expatriates into the never-ending popular discourse
about Canadian nationalism and about what it means to be Canadian.
Why have expats entered the Canadian identity debate—or at
least, the Canadian identity advertising narrative? Previously, popular
culture limited Canadians abroad to students studying internationally
or exploring the world in a gap year with the clichéd maple leaf sewn
on their backpacks.3 However, the rise of globalization in the 1980s
intensified professional migration. The emergence of nation branding
strategies in the late twentieth century reflected national efforts to attract,
for competitive purposes, skilled and professional labour in an era when
such labour (and capital) had become mobile (van Ham 2001a, 2001b).
1 SPATIAL DISLOCATION, CANADIAN EXPATS, AND NATIONAL IDENTITY 5
We witnessed the rise of “non-national” workers (Skovgaard-Smith and

Poulfelt 2017), a growing cadre of mobile, global workers who regu-
larly move all over the world, often in short term, high-paying jobs. They
are marked by “commonality in difference” as they downplay national
affiliations while simultaneously acknowledging national identity features
to maintain difference (Skovgaard-Smith and Poulfelt 2017: 17). Expats
are thus often seen as cosmopolitans who work for high pay and live
exotic lifestyles all over the world. This view has been reinforced by social
media and amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic: “digital nomads” and
even some office workers, no longer restrained by having to go into an
office, have taken advantage of low airfares, cheap accommodations, and
even offers from some countries for temporary work visas (Begley Bloom
2020).
Such a perspective offers, however, an overly optimistic and simplistic
view of the expat experience and fails to capture the myriad ways to
conceptualize or categorize expats, who range widely in what they do,
from diplomats, skilled professionals, students, trailing spouses and chil-
dren, retirees, refugees, asylum seekers, and others (Stephens 2017).
Christopher O’Shaughnessy argues that the core of the expat experi-
ence involves coming to grips with personal identity and how new spaces
transform that identity. He perceptively notes how the simple question,
“where are you from?” becomes an example “of how difficult it can be
to explain myself to other people” (O’Shaughnessy 2014: 13). Expats do
not quite belong in their new homes, yet they may have weak connections
to their homeland. Not surprisingly, expats often struggle with ques-
tions about the meaning of “home,” as revealed in international expat
surveys. Is residence in the new country temporary or permanent? Are
you willing to adapt to the rules, regulations, and culture of the new
home? How difficult is integration? Expats who are parents face the chal-
lenge of raising children in a different culture. Professionals abroad often
do not have time (or choose not to make the time) for language lessons or
other local activities because of the uncertainty surrounding the length of
their stay in their new homes. Meanwhile, trailing spouses and children
have a far greater need to integrate and more often than not confront
the cultural challenges of integration. It can be difficult to explain the
cultural practices of the adopted country when parents themselves might
not understand them. Trailing spouses thus can experience anxiety levels
that are exhausting and sap confidence, as even routine tasks like shop-
ping can be a challenge, given linguistic challenges and the inability to
express yourself to others (Quarck 2018: 24–26).
This anxiety can serve to strengthen ties to one’s home country, as the
home country is often seen as an ideal type against which the new country
is seen. These ties are reinforced by the Internet, social media, and cheap
telephony, not to mention more affordable air travel, making it easier for
expats to stay connected to their home country virtually or in-person. The
contraction of international travel during the COVID-19 pandemic has,
not surprisingly, revealed how connected expats can be to their home
country, as more than one million Canadians and permanent residents,
following the federal government’s appeal to Canadians to return home
while they still could, returned home in the first month of the pandemic
(Jones 2020). The unprecedented extended closure of the Canada–U.S.
border has meant that Canadian “snowbirds,” even if vaccinated, have
had trouble returning to Canada, causing great distress (Owen 2021).
The case of the snowbirds illustrates that there is a strong connection
even in countries that are intricately connected and integrated econom-
ically, politically, and socially through family, such as Canada and the
United States. For example, one study of Canadian expats in the United
States (Lucas 2006) found that they often had both strong transnational
identities and an intense sense of being Canadian because of news, email,
and family. Susan Lucas notes that ties to home are reinforced because
an outsider status politically gets imposed from the host country, in the
case of the United States because of the Patriot Act and the Depart-
ment of Homeland Security. Thus, far from living a nomadic life with
an amorphous identity, space and distance can strengthen connections to
one’s home and national identity. For example, the Canadian expats inter-
viewed by John Stackhouse in his book Planet Canada (2020), certainly
demonstrate strong attachments to Canada.
Canada and its identity are always subject to negotiation, with trans-
formation continuously marking the pathways of Canadian history (Nelles
2004). Canadian expatriates are yet another group fighting for inclusion;
to date, the Canadian identity debate has had little room for expats.
Despite efforts to brand Canada as a multicultural, diverse society that
is a model to the world, Canada has historically been far more focused—
both in terms of public policy and academically—in terms of migration
to Canada and the impact immigration has on the economy, society, and
national identity; Canadians abroad bear little consideration (Welsh 2011;
see also Nimijean, Chapter 9). Canadian expats are often seen in negative
terms or as a possible constraint on Canada. For generations, govern-
ments have worried about a Canadian brain drain, especially to the United
States (Stackhouse 2020: 263–277); Canadian-educated professionals in
fields such as health, law, business, and high-tech are seen as helping to
stimulate growth in Canada’s competitors at a cost to Canada, which
subsidized their education (Silcoff 2018). In a 2021 Canadian Senate
debate on immigration and prosperity, Senator Yuen Pau Woo lamented
that Canadian expats are seen as possible sources of trouble: “the general
tenor of policy discussions around Canadian expatriates,” he noted, “espe-
cially outside of the U.S. and Western Europe, is that this population of
citizens is a liability for the country and that the goal of policy is to mini-
mize the risk of that liability”4 (Woo 2021). Because expats are sometimes
dual citizens born outside Canada, many see them as “citizens of conve-
nience” who are “foreigners with a Canadian passport” visiting “Hotel
Canada,” as Maclean’s magazine declared in 2006 (see Woo 2021). This
is troubling, for it suggests that expats are not attached to Canada and
have the potential to be a financial burden during times of crisis, such
as when they might seek government support for evacuation. Similarly,
resistance to extending voting rights to expats who have been away for
more than 5 years (granted in 2018) reflects the idea that expats are not
very connected to Canada and/or do not contribute economically to their
home country (see Nimijean, Chapter 9).
These views contradict the advertising narrative that the Canadian dias-
pora abroad both represent Canadian values and that they miss home, not
to mention the inclusive dimension of the Canadian identity. It is telling,
and perhaps a little bit sad, that corporations can tap into the expat senti-
ment in ways that governments and some Canadians do not. Senator Woo
(2021) asks, “What does it say, colleagues, about our national psyche
that the term ‘diaspora’ is used to refer to minority Canadians living
in Canada rather than Canadian citizens living outside the country?”
In response, supporters of a diasporic strategy for Canada highlight the
important economic role expats can play in helping Canada pursue its
national interests. Woo (2021) calls the approximately 9% of Canadians
who live abroad a “hidden asset,” constituting what Stackhouse (2020)
calls an “eleventh province.” A diasporic strategy would address citizen-
ship (Boyle and Kitchin 2011: 13–14) and include expats in new thinking
about the Canadian identity.
To overcome the negative perception of expats, Senator Woo argues

that Canada must cultivate linkages with them; otherwise, they will
remain disengaged: “the reality of attachment to Canada is that it works
both ways. A Canada that is not interested in attaching to its overseas citi-
zens will only foster a pool of overseas citizens who are not interested in
attaching to Canada” (Woo 2021). In other words, thinking about Cana-
dian expats does not simply involve economics or issues of liability. The
expatriate condition raises fundamental questions about the meaning of
citizenship and the Canadian identity; however, we do not have an effec-
tive way to evaluate or measure any sense of attachment or identity, apart
from either declaring people as citizens of convenience or asserting that
being a resident abroad does not invalidate pre-existing, well-established
ties. Into this conundrum enters the expat Canadianist, a scholar who
studies Canada from abroad.
Unlike many professions, university professors have always been
mobile, global workers, and there have been many prominent Cana-
dian expat scholars (see Holman, Chapter 2). The rise of international
Canadian Studies in the late 1960s led to the emergence of a new
type of Canadian expat scholar: those who devoted, in part or in full,
their teaching and research to Canada. As several contributors to this
volume note, citizenship has influenced how they perform or are expected
to perform their jobs, as being Canadian in a foreign land does not
necessarily make one expert on all things Canadian.
Distance and the occasional lack of resources make it more challenging
to explain Canada from afar. As Jason Blake (Chapter 12) notes, closely
following the news or listening to podcasts are not substitutes for experi-
encing Canada; he argues that as time away increases, “the more I realize
the benefits of adopting an outsider’s view of my own country, and the
more I appreciate my changing understanding of Canada.” Indeed, being
an expat Canadianist provides opportunities for new insights into Canada.
As Don Sparling (Chapter 11) argues, “Members of a diaspora have a
unique double vision and, ideally, are constantly involved in a two-way
exchange of information and interpretation – from their home country to
their new country of residence, and vice versa.”
Expat Canadianists, similar to what Senator Woo argues, are yet
another hidden but neglected asset. The Harper government’s deci-
sion to terminate support for international Canadian Studies in 2012
(see Eagles, Chapter 16) is an example of failing to cultivate linkages
with expats. Canadian expat academics in the humanities and social
sciences bring an unparalleled level of scholarly expertise and profes-

sional engagement to the examination, analysis, and construction of
Canadian identity. Their collective viewpoints, informed by the reali-
ties of externality or spatial dislocation, transcend commercially oriented,
government-sponsored, and long-prevailing characterizations of Canadian
identity; they forcefully consider in original, objective, and significant
ways what constitutes (and hence lies at) the core of the country’s
identity.
Focus of the Book

This volume brings together seventeen leading Canadian scholars from
across the international community who present fresh multidisciplinary
perspectives on how being located outside Canada affects the construction
of the Canadian identity and how that relates to research, instruction, and
broader professional involvement on Canada. There have been important
studies of the state of Canadian Studies abroad (most recently Brooks
2019), and several contributions have offered issue-based or thematic
overviews of Canada (Gould et al. 1993; Taras and Rasporich 2001; Pryke
and Soderlund 2003; Kasoff and James 2013). We share the concern
about supporting and performing Canadian Studies internationally, but
our focus is on how being abroad affects one’s ability to teach and write
about Canada effectively and how being abroad affects one’s professional
and personal sense of identity. Brooks asks: “does it matter whether
Canada’s stories are known and whether there are people in other coun-
tries who are motivated to tell them?” (2019: 31). We say yes, recognizing
that those stories are often told by expatriate Canadians, who perform the
cultural work of explaining their country to interested others. The work of
expat Canadianists is therefore an important dimension of cultural diplo-
macy. The Understanding Canada program might no longer exist, but
the people abroad still do. They are not only teaching and researching
Canada; they have important things to say about Canada to Canadians at
home; their perspectives offer fresh insight into the ongoing quest among
Canadians to know more about who they are, and who they think they
are. In that spirit, The Construction of Canadian Identity from Abroad
contributes to the debate about the role that Canadian expatriates can and
should play in informing Canadian public policy, shaping public diplo-
macy abroad, and contributing to the ever-present “Canadian Question”
most recently reignited by Stackhouse (2020), Global Canada (2020),

and Senator Woo (2021).
Expat Canadianists have not been explicitly considered in debates
about the state of Canadian Studies either in Canada or internationally.
As the chapters in this volume demonstrate, externality is an important
factor to consider when “doing” Canadian Studies or thinking about
Canada. Our contributors, who work in a variety of academic disci-
plines in the social sciences and humanities, mostly live and work outside
Canada (though a few have recently returned to Canada). Like Canadian
Studies itself, this book incorporates different perspectives and contexts
which, when combined, tell us more about Canada than any one single
disciplinary outlook can.
Contributors to this volume consider how the forces of externality
impact their teaching, research, scholarship, and university, profes-
sional associations, and community service. On the issue of classroom
engagement, various scholars examine how they approach and construct
curriculum offerings featuring Canada for both undergraduate and grad-
uate courses. Chapter authors specifically explore a series of core inquiries,
including:
• Is Canada placed in a comparative context?

• Are specific themes or disciplinary categories employed?
• What disciplinary areas receive the greatest attention?
• How are Canadian content courses constructed for non-Canadian
university students and what are the responses of non-Canadian
students to these offerings?
Contributors were also asked to appraise how they identified and

constructed potential research topics, and to what extent these choices
or preferences were informed by one’s externality. For example, how are
chosen research topics shaped by a non-Canadian geographic context?
Are decisions influenced by the availability of and access to source mate-
rials, especially primary sources (e.g., archival documents and interview
subjects), and funding?
Finally, contributors were asked to consider an assortment of issues
associated with different forms of professional service. Several authors—
particularly those who serve or have served in senior leadership or
administrative roles in their institutions and/or national and multinational
Canadian Studies associations—detail how they approach and navigate the

construction, interpretation, and implementation of Canadian identity in
such settings: has this influenced the programming choices or directions
undertaken in constructing and shaping the policies and actions of these
bodies? A number of authors further consider how their construction of
Canadian identity also involves broader public and community engage-
ment and activism. The question of how one interprets and constructs
Canada for wider non-Canadian audiences is examined. Consistent with
the idea of Canadian Studies as self-study, several contributors reflect on
how their own feelings of being Canadian are affected by their profes-
sional externality. The unique situation of the expat Canadianist, given
the unavoidable connection between personal and professional identi-
ties, has raised questions of authority (on Canada) and authenticity; in
this volume, we see thoughtful writing that is both highly analytical
and deeply personal and that provides unique insight into Canada and
Canadian Studies.
The chapters in this book thus build upon and extend current analyses
of how the interpretation and construction of Canada have changed over
time, especially in the post-Understanding Canada era (i.e., no Govern-
ment of Canada direct funding for Canadian Studies abroad). While this
volume revisits the debate over the legitimacy of Canadian federal govern-
ment support of international Canadian Studies only narrowly (see Eagles,
Chapter 16), we believe that international Canadian Studies is about more
than supporting merely academic programming: it can be part of a revi-
talized public diplomacy program that can connect to a much-needed
Canadian diasporic strategy.
Contents of the Book

Following on the heels of this introductory chapter is Part II, “Exile,
Scholarship, and Rethinking Canada and the Canadian Identity,” which
focuses on how being located outside Canada creates challenges and,
indeed, opportunities for thinking about Canada. Externality introduces
a disconnect with Canada and the scholarly enterprise as the expat
Canadianist faces institutional challenges that affect both teaching and
research. Andrew Holman, a historian of Canada who was born, raised,
and educated in Canada, examines how historians come to know what
they know about the past, and, more particularly, how the location of
their lived experience shapes that understanding. Residing in southeastern
Massachusetts, he examines how the expatriate condition (using the trope

of the historian as “exile”), shapes the way he views Canadian history
and, in turn, the way he is seen by other historians. That condition, he
argues, pushes Canadian historians of Canada located in the United States
to adapt their work in four discernible ways: to adopt a comparative
framework for their studies of Canada, to engage the problem of civics
education in history teaching, to combat “fossilization” in their research
agendas, and finally to confront the issue of “standing” within the Cana-
dian history community and the burden of authenticity in their own
universities. Claire Campbell’s chapter reflects on years of teaching Cana-
dian Studies first in Denmark and then the United States. She observes
how the field of environmental history—the human experience of envi-
ronmental change and our relationship with nature in the past—suits
thinking about “externality” by illuminating and challenging the frame of
the national project. Campbell argues that centering the environment as
a subject of historical study affirms the need to precisely study Canada—
where geography and history have been so entwined, and where so many
of the issues of concern to sustainability can be found. Living in France
allows Andrew Ives to consider how expatriates find themselves particu-
larly exposed to identity-related issues of objectivity. They present, Ives
maintains, an interesting case study to speculate on how the status of
expatriate interplays with cultural biases and doxa, especially when inves-
tigating issues related to national identity. Canadian scholarly expatriates,
he maintains, gain a clearer vision of their home country from their
vantage point abroad, due primarily to the ways that distance and exile
simultaneously affect the expatriate author’s personal sense of identity;
this helps expose the unquestioned national ethos propagated in the home
environment. Expatriates also gain new insights through their close associ-
ation with a second cultural environment, which impacts one’s perception
of Canadian national identity. These factors help explain, he claims, why
he is less interested in the specificities and particularities of Canadian
national identity and more focused on how the country can showcase
wider global phenomena.
Part III, “Multiple Layers of Externality,” includes three chapters that
powerfully argue that spatial dislocation is a multi-layered, reinforcing
phenomenon that includes considerations of race, ancestry, community,
and regional identity. Each contribution details how the construction of
Canadian identity for expats is much more than simply a physical func-
tion of national displacement. Debra Thompson utilizes the backdrop of
racism in institutions of higher education to examine the varied mani-

festations of structural racism in the United States and Canada in two
ways. First, the chapter analyzes how being Canadian in American higher
education reveals the ways that the varied functions of the university—as
an employer, a space where ideas are debated, a public good, a corpora-
tion or brand, and a home and community—work to exclude non-white
people. Secondly, the chapter uses these lessons to rethink the ways that
systemic racism functions in Canadian higher education despite Canada’s
image as a tolerant, multicultural, and egalitarian society. Bernard Perley
candidly recognizes, as a Maliseet citizen of Tobique First Nation, New
Brunswick, that additional layers of externality render consideration and
construction of Canadian identity to be a contestable process and concept.
The “externality” that First Nations in Canada endure is obscured, Perley
maintains, by the national rhetoric of multiculturalism and world peace-
keeper. As an Indigenous expat who only recently returned to teach at
a Canadian university, double externality serves as the critical ground for
classroom instruction on ongoing colonial structures that exclude Indige-
nous populations from the national imaginary in a nation-state guided
by precepts of social justice. Is there a pathway, the author inquires, to
redress centuries of colonial erasure of First Peoples? Christina Keppie
provides a collection of teaching anecdotes and reflections on how her
experiences as a Canadian and francophile, also from New Brunswick,
has intimately shaped the identity of her American undergraduate class-
room. Championing a progressively more experiential and comparative
lens through which to construct and understand francophone Canada,
her stories successfully illustrate how she has worked to combat what she
calls the singularization and othering of francophone Canada (especially
Acadia) within a broader framework of Canadian identity.
Part IV, “Remaining Unmoored—Externality and Uncertainty,”
considers the pervasive, at times unsettling, and seemingly unmovable
impacts of externality on the ways that scholars approach and construct
Canadian identity. Externality, we find, fosters uncertainty, encourages
intellectual fluidity, and elevates critical new inquiries (which often remain
unresolved) to the forefront of professional engagement. Irene Bloem-
raad addresses a scholarly trajectory marked by a duality of dealing with
indifference and authenticity, challenges that shift depending on whether
her audience is inside or outside of Canada. By adopting a comparative
approach to the scholarship of migration, she has helped to break new
ground within a largely U.S.-dominated approach to migration studies.
However, in Canada, the challenge is one of authenticity. What does a

U.S.-based academic, especially one who is increasingly distanced from
the lived experience of Canadian life, truly know about a country she no
longer calls home? With time, Bloemraad argues, you are no longer an
expat Canadian with some legitimacy to speak on Canada but are trans-
formed and recognized largely as a Canadian immigrant in the United
States, vulnerable to the criticism that faces all immigrants, to excessive
nostalgia for the homeland, and to an understanding of Canada that is
frozen in the moment that you left. Richard Nimijean’s chapter examines
the effect of distance on rethinking Canada professionally and personally.
Located in Switzerland since 2015, Nimijean continues to teach online
courses in Canadian Studies to his students in Canada while maintaining
an active research and professional profile. He describes how this unique
situation not only presents numerous professional and pedagogical chal-
lenges; it affects how he relates to Canada on a personal level, as the
dynamics of Swiss and European politics force him to rethink how he
relates to the core tenets of the Canadian identity. Steven Hayward’s
contribution focuses on the challenge of making the case for Canada as
something other than a wintery appendage of the United States. His chal-
lenge, as a Canadian fiction writer and creative writing instructor in the
United States, means that explaining Canada is at the same time proving
its existence. Hayward’s sparkling narrative considers how teaching Cana-
dian literature and presenting himself as a Canadian writer has shaped
both his identity and the identity of the institutions of which he has
been a part. His chapter concludes with a reflection on his recent deci-
sion to become an American citizen at a time when many Americans
are questioning their own national identity and having to make their
own arguments about how and by whom it is constituted. Don Spar-
ling, a Canadian academic who for the past 53 years has lived in the
Czech Republic (formerly Czechoslovakia), became a “Canadianist” after
teaching his first course on Canadian literature at Masaryk University in
1985. His chapter describes how his involvement as a diasporic Cana-
dian engaging in Canadian Studies has changed over the years, as has his
relationship to Canada itself. Moving from isolation to a closer personal
engagement with Canada while concomitantly experiencing a renewed
sense of inclusion in his adopted country, his experience has been shaped
by external factors such as the political reality of the Cold War era
East–West divide, the opening up of Czech society following the fall of
Communism, Canadian government support for Canadian Studies, the
presence of a worldwide community of Canadianists, and globalization

and the new media.
Part V of this volume, “Disciplinary Focus and the Question of Exter-
nality,” examines the impacts of externality within the context of specific
disciplines. How have scholars pursued the construction of Canadian
identity in such varied areas as literature, theatre and dance, political
science, history, Canadian Studies, and Québec Studies? Jason Blake
chronicles how his relationship to Canada became increasingly more
textual over time. Reading about Canada and teaching Canadian liter-
ature to Slovenian students has changed what Canada means to him,
leaving the author less confident about how “in touch” he is with Canada.
He examines how his medial position makes him aware of knowledge
gaps about Canada and cultural assumptions among Central Europeans
that must be addressed in the classroom. The longer Blake remains and
continues to teach Canada in Slovenia, the more he realizes the bene-
fits of adopting an outsider’s view. Julie Burelle focuses on research and
teaching about Indigenous theatre and performance in Canada, which
she does at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Most
directly, Burelle examines how the concept of critical distance funda-
mentally shapes and challenges the construction of a complex contested
Canadian identity. Patrick James examines the role of communication in
Canadian Studies as related to identity. More specifically, representation of
theoretical constructs and analytical arguments utilizing systemist graphic
visualizations is advocated as a way of dealing with both cross-national and
interdisciplinary challenges to advance our understanding of Canadian
identity in the humanities and social sciences—most notably within the
context of New Area Studies—in the information age. Anne Trépanier’s
chapter of her experience as a Canadianist and Québéciste in Italy high-
lights yet another way in which externality affects thinking about Canada.
As with other contributors, being located abroad affected how she under-
stood Canada and Québec. However, it was not due simply to living and
working in a different physical and cultural environment; studying Cana-
dian exhibitions at the Venice Biennale—in effect, Canadian performances
of national identity—forced her to rethink the narratives that inform that
identity, leading her to develop a more complex approach to teaching and
researching Canada and Québec.
The sixth and final part of The Construction of Canadian Identity from
Abroad is called “Externality and Canadian and Professional Identities.”
This section uses nations, regions, and the broader international commu-
nity as frameworks for the construction of Canadian identity and how they
have been employed over time, often over the course of a professional
career. Munroe Eagles explores his experiences thinking, researching,
and teaching about Canada from just across the border in western New
York, and the paradox that Canada has loomed large in his professional
career since departing for the United States in 1989. The University
at Buffalo, Eagles maintains, has an opportunity and a responsibility to
do what it can to advance cross-border understanding and comity; a
mission, we learn, that resulted in significant leadership roles for the
author on campus and with national and international Canadian Studies
organizations. Geographic location is also at the forefront of Athanasios
Hristoulas’ chapter—living and working abroad in Mexico, he argues,
has had a significant and long-lasting impact on his teaching, research,
and public engagement on Canadian foreign policy. Working in Mexico
on Canada has afforded Hristoulas direct access to Canadian, United
States, and Mexican foreign policymakers and as a channel to voice their
concerns on North American regional cooperation. Christopher Kirkey’s
contribution, the concluding chapter in The Construction of Canadian
Identity from Abroad, advances a narrative in which his approach toward
and construction of all things Canadian—including undergraduate and
graduate teaching, scholarship, and service to university life, professional
academic associations, and community engagement—is rooted in one
central inquiry: “why Canada?” The construction of Canadian identity,
Kirkey suggests, is grounded in and rests on a core foundational need
to first explain why Canada (as opposed to who, how, what, and when)
merits our time and attention as a matter of analytical focus. As he and
the other contributors show, “why Canada” connects expatriate Canadi-
anists regardless of their individual physical and institutional locations,
showing how externality is an important dimension of the Canadian
Studies enterprise.
It is difficult to generalize about the expat experience, especially since,
as noted earlier, there is no consensus on even defining who or what
definitively constitutes an expat. The expat experience is deeply personal
and individualistic; it is influenced by one’s work and family and condi-
tioned by a new country. Our contributors reflect this. They live and
work in a variety of countries, engage in a range of academic and profes-
sional responsibilities, and are anchored in different scholarly disciplines.
Contrary to the claims that expats do not have a deep attachment to
Canada, Canada forms an important part of their profile as expat Canadi-

anists. Thus, while it is difficult to draw out declarative conclusions from
this collection, four central themes emerge.
The impacts of externality for scholarly expats are significant . The
condition of externality means that the expat Canadianist considers iden-
tity not in any nation-building sense of the term but rather as an analytical
pathway to present a Canada that recognizes the complexities that super-
ficial stereotypes of the country overlook or do not capture. In short,
spatial dislocation has a clearly documented, pervasive, and ongoing
influence on how expat Canadianists approach and construct Canadian
identity. They offer a different insight into Canada than do Canadian-
ists in Canada or foreign scholars. Being identified as a Canadian usually
translates into assuming a role as a “go to” in the new country. While
most of our contributors were hired to work in disciplines other than
Canadian Studies and face pressure to demonstrate the relevance and
significance of Canadian subjects in their work, expat Canadianists face
an additional pressure to be expert in “all things Canadian.” This creates
both professional opportunities and constraints. Additionally, interpreta-
tions of Canada are enhanced by living outside the country, as a critical
gaze from afar allows for comparisons between one’s adopted country
and Canada, producing new insights into Canadian phenomena.
Geographic location and time away from Canada matter . Scholars
require regular access to primary and secondary source materials. Being
physically closer to home is therefore important. For our U.S.-based
contributors, it has been easier (though not always convenient) to
visit Canada (sometimes connected to family visits), especially given
an integrated transportation network, and to perform scholarly activi-
ties—research, conferences, guest lectures, and service, not to mention
browsing in bookstores and libraries. Networking is less problematic,
particularly given the national presence of the Association for Canadian
Studies in the United States. The further one is away from Canada, the
more challenging location becomes. Networking and access to books and
journals can be particularly vexing. All expat Canadianists face the chal-
lenge of time: the longer one is away from Canada, one’s personal feel for
Canada, rooted in experience in Canada, diminishes. The expat Canadi-
anist’s professional authority is in part derived from being from Canada;
but as several contributors note—closely following Canada from afar is
not the same thing as being there.
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bottle—a fault common with the wealthy in Persia—no vices such as
are usual in the Persians of towns.
We stayed with him four days; the first morning some fifty horses
were paraded for our inspection, for our host bred very fine animals,
and among other taxes had to find yearly three fine beasts fit for the
royal stables. As we sat at a window just raised from the ground, the
entire string were led or ridden past us; but as the clothing was on,
one could not see much of them.
This clothing consists of a perhan (shirt) of fine woollen blanketing,
which envelops the whole body of the animal, being crossed over the
chest, but all above the withers is bare. Over this is the jūl, or day
clothing; this the horse wears summer and winter, save during the
midday time in summer, when he is either naked or has only the
perhan on. The jūl is of the same shape as the perhan, but is of
coarser texture and lined with felt. Over the jūl is the nammad,[13] or
outer felt.
This is a sheet of felt half or three-quarters of an inch thick, and so
long that it can be drawn over the horse’s head and neck while the
quarters are still well covered, thus completely enveloping the animal
in a warm and waterproof covering, and enabling him to stand the
cold of winter in the draughty stables of the caravanserai, or even, as
is frequently required, to camp out. (During all the summer months in
Persia the horses sleep outside.)
This nammad is held in its place by a long strip of broad cotton
webbing, which is used as a surcingle, and usually, except at night,
the part of the nammad used to cover the neck is doubled down over
the animal’s body.
As the procession went by we gave free vent to our admiration; as
Pierson acknowledged, he had never seen such a collection of
horses. I, too, was surprised. Some dozen of the finer animals were
stripped, and as we admired each, the usual empty compliment of
“Peishkesh-i-shuma” (“A present to you”) was paid us.
The quail-shooting was good fun; we marched through the green
wheat in a row of some ten, horses and servants following, and the
birds got up in every direction, a very large bag being made, though
probably as many more were lost in the high wheat. The peculiar cry
of the bird resounded in every direction.
Several princes were among the guests of Mahommed Houssein
Khan, and he and his sons showed us and them the greatest
kindness and attention.
In the afternoon suddenly arrived Suleiman Mirza (literally Prince
Solomon), a near relative of the king, who was returning from a
pilgrimage to the burial-place of the saints at Kerbela, near Baghdad.
This man was quite a Daniel Lambert, moving with difficulty, very old,
but of a very merry disposition; a good deal of joking took place after
his arrival.
PERSIAN BAND.
After an apparently interminable Persian dinner, which consisted

of some hundred plats, among which may be favourably mentioned
the pillaws of mutton or fowls, boiled and smothered in rice, in rice
and orange-peel, in rice and lentils, in rice and haricots, in rice and
“schewed,” a herb somewhat resembling fennel; the fizinjans of fowls
and boiled meats; also partridges boiled and served with the
concentrated juice of the pomegranate and pounded walnuts;
kabobs of lamb and antelope; a lamb roasted whole, stuffed with
dates, pistachios, chestnuts, and raisins; salt fish from the Caspian;
extract of soup with marrow floating in it; dolmas, or dumplings,
made of minced meat and rice, highly flavoured and wrapped in vine
leaves and fried; rissoles; wild asparagus boiled; new potatoes,
handed round cold, and eaten with salt; while roast quails,
partridges, and doves were served with lettuces, drenched with
honey and vinegar.
Each guest was supplied with a loaf of flat bread as a plate, and
another for eating.
We sat on the ground, some twenty in all, round a huge tablecloth
of red leather, if I may use that expression, for a large sheet of
leather laid on the ground. Suleiman Mirza, as the king’s relative,
occupied the place of honour. On the other hand of our host sat
Pierson, and I next him, while Abu Seif Mirza, as a prince, took his
position by right on the other side of the great man, and was by him
punctiliously addressed as prince, and generally treated as one.
Huge china bowls of sherbet were placed down the centre of the
sūfrah (tablecloth), and in each bowl was an elaborately-carved
wooden spoon, which were used indiscriminately; these spoons held
a gill, and were drunk from, no glasses being used.
During the time the dinner was progressing little conversation took
place, everybody being engaged in eating as much of as many
dishes as possible. But a band of villagers played the santūr, a sort
of harmonicon; the tūmbak, or small drum, played on with the tips of
the fingers—there were two tūmbak players; the neh or flute, or,
more properly speaking, reed; and the deyeereh, literally circle, a
kind of large tambourine, played, like the tūmbak, with the tips of the
fingers.
As soon as every one had (literally) eaten his fill, Suleiman Mirza,
the king’s relative, rose, and we all got up.
In lieu of grace each man said, “Alhamdillilah!” (“Thank God!”) and
from politeness most of the guests eructated, showing that they were
thoroughly satisfied.
This ceremony is common through the East, and it is considered
the height of rudeness to the host to abstain from it. Coffee was now
handed round, and pipes were brought. A singer, too, commenced a
ditty, which he shouted as do costermongers when crying their wares
in England; he put his hand to the side of his mouth to increase the
sound, his face became crimson with his efforts, the muscles and
veins stood out in relief on his neck, and his eyes nearly started from
their sockets. He frequently paused to take breath, and ceased amid
loud applause. The singing and music were kept up till a late hour.
Politeness prevented our retiring, but we longed for rest; and on
Pierson’s being tormented into a long disquisition on magic, he
seized the opportunity to get away by stratagem. Telling the fat
prince that, as he insisted on seeing the magic of the West, he would
gratify him, he placed the old gentleman on a mattress, and putting
four princes (he insisted on royal blood), standing each on one leg at
the four corners, with a lighted lamp in each hand, he gravely
assured them that we should retire and perform an incantation,
while, if no one laughed or spoke, on our return the lights would burn
blue. We got to bed, barricaded ourselves in our room, and tried to
sleep. After some few minutes, loud shouts announced the discovery
of the ruse, and a party arrived to bring us back, but too late, for we
had retired.
Next morning I was asked to see some of the ladies of the family.
So little does this village khan observe the Mahommedan rule of
veiling the women, that I was allowed to pass my whole morning in
his anderūn. My host’s wife, a huge woman of five-and-forty in
appearance, but in reality about thirty-five, was intent on household
cares; she was making cucumber-jam. The cucumber having been
cut into long slices the thickness of an inch, and the peel and seeds
removed, had been soaked in lime-water some month; this was kept
frequently changed, and the pieces of cucumber were now quite
transparent. They were carefully put in a simmering stew-pan of
strong syrup, which was placed over a wood fire, and, after cooking
for a quarter of an hour, the pieces of cucumber were carefully laid in
an earthen jar, and the syrup poured over them, spices being added.
I fancy that about a hundredweight of this preserve was made that
morning. When cold the cucumber was quite crisp; the result
satisfied our hostess, and she presented me with a seven-pound jar.
Our host’s young son, a youth of seventeen, caused considerable
commotion among the two or three negresses by his efforts to get
his fingers into the cooling jam-pots; while his two sisters, nice-
looking girls of fifteen and sixteen, tried to restrain his fancy for
preserves in vain. We all laughed a great deal, and mother and
daughters were full of fun, while the grinning negresses thoroughly
enjoyed the noise and laughing.
Not having seen a woman’s face for three months, these girls
seemed to me perhaps better looking than they really were, but I
confess returning to the outer regions of the berūni with regret; and
Pierson envied my good fortune in having, as a medico, had a
glimpse of Persian home-life which he could never hope for. Really
the patient was, as it often is, a mere excuse for entertaining so
strange a being as a Feringhi, and getting thus a good look at him.
We went out twice after antelope, which we hunted with relays of
dogs; but as we were not successful, there is little to tell. We
returned to Hamadan, regretting the end of a very pleasant visit.
On our arrival a grateful patient among the Armenians sent me
eighty kerans (three pounds ten) in a little embroidered bag. As the
woman could ill afford it, I told her that I would accept the bag as a
keepsake, and returned the money. So unheard-of a proceeding
astonished the Armenian community, and the priest, a wealthy old
sinner, saw his way, as he thought, to a stroke of business. I had
treated him, too, and he brought me a similar sum in a similar bag.
Great was his disgust when I thanked him for the money and politely
returned the bag, and he confided to my servant that, had he thought
this would have been the result, he would never have paid a farthing.
One day a villager brought us two large lizards, some three feet
from snout to the tip of the tail, and we secured them for a couple of
kerans. They ran about the place for a week or two, interfering with
no one, but did not get tame. The dogs chased them when they were
not on the face or top of a wall, and they at first used to bolt; but after
a time they stood still, allowed the dog to get within range, and then
—thwack—the tail was brought down with tremendous force, and the
dog retired howling. After a day or two no dog would go near the
lizards. They were uninteresting as pets, and as Pierson once got a
severe blow on the shin from one he stumbled over in the dark, we
sent them away. They were huge beasts, of a yellow-ochre colour,
and lived on flies and chopped meat; they were never seen to drink.
I purchased about this time a talking lark: he seemed the ordinary
lark such as we see in England; “torgah” is the Persian name. The
bird never sang, but said very plainly, “Bebe, Bebe Tūtee,” which is
equivalent to “Pretty Polly”—being really “Lady, lady parrot;” he
varied occasionally by “Bebe jahn” (“Dear lady”). The articulation
was extremely clear. There are many talking larks in Persia. The
bazaar or shopkeeper class are fond of keeping larks, goldfinches,
and parrots, in cages over their shops.
Sitting, too, on our roof, we could see the pigeon-flying or kafteh-
bazi. A pigeon-fancier in Persia is looked upon as a lūti (blackguard),
as his amusement takes him on the roofs of others, and is supposed
to lead to impropriety; it being considered the height of indecency to
look into another’s courtyard.
The pigeons kept are the carrier, which are very rare; the tumbler,
or mallagh (mallagh, a summersault), and the fantail, or ba-ba-koo.
The name exactly represents the call of the fantail. It was this bird
which was supposed to bring the revelations to the prophet
Mahommed, and consequently keeping a fantail or two is not looked
on as discreditable. They are never killed. These fantails do not fly
with the rest, keeping in the owner’s yard and on the roof. The yahoo
is the other ordinary variety, and is only valued for its flesh, being
bred, as we breed fowls, by the villagers. It has a feathered leg, and
will not fly far from home.
The pigeons are flown twice a day, in the early morning and
evening, and it is a very pretty thing to watch.
The owner opens the door and out fly all the pigeons, perhaps
thirty, commencing a circular flight, whose circles become larger and
larger. The fancier watches them eagerly from his roof, and when he
has given them a sufficient flight and there are none of his rival’s
birds in view, he calls and agitates a rag affixed to a long pole. This
is the signal for feeding, and the weaker birds generally return at
once to their cupboard, the stronger continue their flight, but lessen
the diameter of the circle, and one by one return, the best birds
coming back last. As they come over the house they commence to
“tumble” in the well-known manner, falling head over heels as if shot;
some birds merely make one turn over, while others make twenty. It
is a very curious and a very pretty sight. The birds are extremely
tame, and settle on the person of the fancier.
Hitherto there has been nothing more than a flight of pigeons, but
in the afternoon, about an hour or two hours before sunset, the real
excitement commences. Up goes a flight of some twenty pigeons,
they commence to make circles; no sooner does their course extend
over the house of a rival fancier than he starts his birds in a cloud, in
the hope of inveigling an outlying bird or two into his own flock; then
both owners call, whistle, and scream wildly, agitating their poles and
flags.
The rival flocks separate, but one bird has accompanied the more
successful fancier’s flight. As it again passes over the house of the
victimised one, he liberates two of his best birds; these are mixed
with the rest, but ere they have completed half a circle they, with the
lost one, rejoin their own flight. Their delighted owner now calls down
his birds, and in a few moments envelops a pair of his rival’s in a
crowd of his own.
Then again commence the cries, the whistlings, the agitating flags,
and the liberation of single or pairs or flights of birds. As one of Mr.
A.’s birds is being convoyed towards B.’s roof with a pair of his, Mr.
C. envelops the three in a cloud of pigeons, and the whole flock
alight—C.’s flight in his own dovecot, and A.’s bird and B.’s pair, as
timid strangers, on a neighbouring wall; A. and B. vainly screaming
while their two flocks keep circling high in air. C., B., and A.
simultaneously run over roofs and walls to get near the birds. But B.
and A. have a long way to travel, while happy C. is close by; he
crouches double, and carrying in one hand a kind of landing-net,
makes for the birds; in his bosom is a fantail pigeon, in his left hand
some grain. Artful B. throws a stone and his two birds rise and fly
home, and with a fancier’s delight he watches C.; but A. is too far off
for this manœuvre, and hurries over roof after roof. Too late! C. has
tossed his fantail down near A.’s bird, the fantail, struts about calling
“Ba-ba-koo, ba-ba-koo!” The prize has his attention taken and stoops
to peck the seed that C. has tossed over a low wall. As he does so
C.’s landing-net is on him, the fantail flies lazily home, and C.,
shouting and brandishing his capture, makes the best of his way to
the roof of his own premises.
Then the flights begin again, rival fanciers from distant roofs
liberate their flocks, flags are waved, and the drama, with endless
variations, is repeated. Once a fancier always a fancier, they say.
A. repairs to C.’s house to buy back his bird at six or more times
its intrinsic value, for to leave a bird in the hands of a rival fancier
might cost the man his whole flock on a subsequent occasion, the
captured birds, of course, acting as the best of decoys.
The favourite birds are ornamented with little rings or bracelets of
silver, brass, or ivory, which are borne like bangles on the legs (the
mallagh, or tumbler, has no feathers on the leg) and rattle when the
bird walks; these bangles are not ransomed, but remain lawful prize.
As the colours of the birds are very different, one soon recognises
the individual birds of one’s neighbours’ collections, and the interest
one feels in their successes and defeats is great. Our high roof,
towering over most others, made us often sit and watch the pigeon-
flying; and the circling birds as they whirred past us, flight after flight,
against the blue, cloudless sky near sunset, was a sight worth
seeing. The fanciers were many of them old men, and some actually
lived on the ransom exacted from the owners of their captives.
These pigeon-fanciers had a slang of their own, and each
coloured bird had a distinctive name. So amused were we that I
ordered my groom to buy a flight of pigeons and commence
operations; but Syud Houssein, the British Agent, pointed out that it
would be infra dig. to engage in a practice that was considered
incorrect. It is strange that sporting, or what is called sporting,
generally leads, even in the East, to blackguardism.
Card-playing, too, is only indulged in by the less reputable of the
community; there is only one game, called Ahs an Ahs; it is played
with twenty cards—four kings, four soldiers (or knaves), four queens
(or ladies), four latifeh (or courtesans), and four ahs (or aces). This
latter is shown generally by the arms of Persia, “the Lion and Sun.”
The lion is represented couchant regardant, bearing a scimitar, while
the sun (“kurshid,” or head of glory) is portrayed as a female face
having rays of light around it; this is shown as rising over the lion’s
quarters. There is only this one game of cards played with the
gungifeh (or cards); they can hardly be called cards, as they are
made of papier-maché an eighth of an inch thick, and elaborately
painted. As much as ten tomans can be given for a good pack.
European cards are getting generally used among the upper
classes, who, under the name of bank or banco, have naturalised
the game of lansquenet. But as Persians have an idea that all is fair
at cards, like ladies at round games, they will cheat, and he who
does so undetected is looked on as a good player (“komar-baz
zereng,” clever gamester).
Chess (“shahtrenj”) is much played by the higher classes, but in
the Indian manner, the pawn having only one square to pass and not
two at the first, as with us. Backgammon, too, is in great vogue; the
dice, however, are thrown with the hand, which leads to great
“cleverness,” an old hand throwing what he likes; but as the usual
stakes are a dinner or a fat lamb, not much harm is done.
The lower orders have a kind of draughts played on a board
(marked somewhat similar to our Fox and Geese), and at each angle
of which is placed a mor (seal), i. e. piece. This game is generally
played on a brick or large tile, the board being chalked, the pieces
stones; they are moved from angle to angle. I never could fathom
how it is played, the rules being always different and seemingly
arbitrary.
Another game is played on a wooden board or an embroidered
cloth one; this is an ancient one called takht-i-pul. I have a very old
embroidered cloth forming the board, the men being of carved ivory,
given me by Mr. G⸺, of the Persian Telegraph Department, but I
never could find two Persians who agreed as to the rules. Pitch-and-
toss is constantly engaged in by the boys in the bazaar.
Rounders (a bastard form of it) are played by the Ispahan boys,
and they also play at a species of fives. Marbles are unknown, but I
have seen the primitive game of “bonse,” which is played by our
boys with “bonses” (large marbles), large pebbles being the
substitutes for the bonses in Persia, as they are with street-boys
here.
Wrestling is in great favour; the gymnasia (Zūr Khana) are
frequented by the youth and manhood of all ranks, who meet there
on an equality. Wrestling bouts are common among the boys and
youths on every village maidān.
In each gymnasium (Zūr Khana, literally “house of force”) the
professional “pehliwan,” or wrestlers, practise daily; and gymnastics,
i. e. a course of attendance at a gymnasium, are often prescribed by
the native doctor. Generally an experienced and retired pehliwan
acts as “lanista,” and for a small fee prescribes a regular course of
exercises. Dumb-bells are much used; also a heavy block of wood,
shield-shape, some two feet by three, and three inches thick, with an
aperture in the middle, in which is placed a handle. The gymnast lies
on his back, and holding this in one hand makes extension from side
to side; a huge bow of thick steel plates, with a chain representing
the string, is bent and unbent frequently.
But the great and most favourite implements are the clubs (what
we call Indian clubs); these the professional athlete will use of great
size and weight; and after going through the usual exercises will hurl
them, together or alternately, to a great height, and unfailingly catch
them.
The wrestling is carried on, as a rule, good-temperedly; but when
done by professionals for reward, awkward tricks are employed,
such as suddenly thrusting the fingers into the eye of the adversary,
and others still more dangerous.
As a preventive against these, the wrestler always wears knee
breeches of stiff horsehide, some of which are beautifully
embroidered with blue thread; all above the waist and below the
knee being bare. A good deal of time is, as a rule, lost in taking hold
and clappings of hands, and then generally the bout commences
with one hand grasping the adversary’s, while the other clutches the
body. The object is not a clean throw, but to make the knees of the
opponent touch the ground, and consequently agility tells more than
strength and size. The pairs are always made with regard to skill,
size and weight being little considered.
The gymnasia are merely darkened rooms (for coolness), with a
sunken ring in the centre, where the wrestling takes place. The floor
is nearly always of earth only, to render falls less severe.
A Persian has no idea of the use of his fists. When a street-fight
takes place, the combatants claw and slap at each other, and end by
clutching each other’s “zūlf” (long love-locks, which most wear), or
beards, or clothing. Then comes a sort of wrestle, when they are
generally separated.
Every great personage retains among his favoured servants a few
pehliwans or wrestlers; and among the artisans many are wrestlers
by profession, and follow at the same time a trade.
CHAPTER IX.
KERMANSHAH.
Leave for Kermanshah, marching—Detail of arrangements—Horse feeding—

Peculiar way of bedding horses—Barley—Grape feeding—On grass—
Nawalla—Colt, Anecdote of—Horses, Various breeds of—Turkomans—
Karabagh—Ispahan cobs—Gulf Arabs—Arabs—Rise in price of horses—
Road cooking—Kangawar temple—Double snipe—Tents—Kara-Su River—
Susmanis—Sana—Besitūn—Sir H. Rawlinson—Agha Hassan—Istikhbal—
Kermanshah—As we turn in another turns out—Armenians—Their reasons for
apostatising—Presents of sweetmeats.
On Pierson’s return to Hamadan, I gladly prepared to start with

him for Kermanshah. My traps were not numerous—a folding-table,
four chairs, a tressel bedstead, and two bullock-trunks, formed one
load; and my bedding in a case, made of carpet, bound with leather,
and surmounted by my head-man, another; my groom was perched
on a third, sitting on the clothing of the two horses, and carrying their
head and heel ropes and the stable spade, with which their bed of
“pane” (dried horse-dung) is prepared at night, and the copper
bucket for watering them.
The cook, with all his batterie de cuisine, had the fourth, and
Ramazan and the contents of the dispensary took two more. I think
another was charged with bottled beer, and of course we each rode
our horses. The stages were:—
Farsakhs.
Assadabad or Seydabad 7
Kangawar 5
Sana 6
Besitūn 4
Kermanshah 6
Or miles, 112; farsakhs, 28.
An hour’s riding took us clear of the vineyards of Hamadan, and
we passed over grassy downs with patches of desert till we got to
the commencement of the Seydabad Pass. This, though it would be
looked on as a tremendous matter in England, is nothing difficult to
get over when there is no snow, and an hour’s smart climb brought
us to the top.
The descent on the other side was much longer, and we made the
seven farsakhs, about twenty-eight miles, in nine hours’ continuous
marching. The road was very bad, being full of loose stones the
whole of the way from the commencement of the ascent. We put up
at the “chupper-khana;” as this was my first experience of marching,
I may as well detail our arrangements.
As soon as we had cleared the top of the pass, the servants
pushed on with those loads that it was needful to unpack, while we
came on slowly with the mules; the grooms, too, went on as smartly
as possible; my fellow had my other horse led in a halter. As it got to
nearly sunset (we had started very late, as is always the case in a
first stage), we cantered gently in to the post-house.
Our grooms were at the door ready to take our horses, and we
found the dirty little mud room swept, carpeted, a fire lighted, and the
entrance curtained with a tent door; the chairs and table had been
put out, and the kalians got under weigh. Our servants had tea
ready, and we were quite prepared to rest and be thankful. Our
books and pipes had been put handy in our bedding, and were laid
out for us.
Half-an-hour after sunset the groom came to say he was going to
feed the horses. We go into the yard, into which our room opens,
and find Pierson’s stud of Gods on one side, my two on the other,
each tethered by double head-ropes to a mud manger, which is
constructed in the wall, and secured by heel-ropes of goats’ hair tied
to pins of iron a foot long, firmly driven into the ground.
The horses had been carefully dry-rubbed and clothed, the
nammads, or felt coverings, drawn over their necks, for it was chilly,
and the beds of “pane” laid for them.
The Persians use no straw for making beds for their horses, as it
is too valuable; but they utilise the dung, which is carefully dried in
the sun and then stored, as bedding; this is very dry, clean, and soft,
and quite without smell. When thus dried, it is called “pane.” It is laid
a foot deep all round the standing of the horse, and the edges
carefully smoothed (as a gardener in England smooths his flower-
beds) by the grooms.
The horses, well aware that it is feeding-time, and having been
watered some ten minutes before (they had been walked about for
half-an-hour to cool them on arrival—a thing a Persian never omits),
now commenced neighing, playfully biting and letting out at each
other as far as their heel-ropes would permit. Pierson’s head-groom
measured out in handfuls the allowance of barley for each beast,
and it was poured into a nosebag filled with “kah,” or chaff, and then
affixed to the animal’s head, that not a grain might be lost. When we
had seen this done, and noticed that each horse fed well, we left, our
place being taken by the head-servant, who stayed till the barley was
eaten; for in those days we could not trust our grooms, who would
always steal the barley if they could.
Oats are not used in Persia, though there are many salt-marshes
in the country where they would grow well. Barley is the only food for
horses, the allowance being from seven to ten pounds of barley for
the animal’s two feeds; generally seven pounds are not exceeded. (It
must be remembered that the general run of animals is much smaller
than that of English horses, fourteen hands being the usual height,
and fifteen being an unusually large beast.) This allowance is divided
into two feeds, five pounds at night and two in the morning. This,
with as much as he chooses to consume of wheat or barley straw,
broken in pieces two inches long (“kah”), is all the animal has from
one end of the year to the other; no hay is given, but for a month the
horse is put on an entire diet of young green barley-grass, of which
he will eat two hundred and fifty pounds a day. Prior to being put on
this diet, which is termed full grass, he has a larger and larger
proportion administered with his chaff; this mixture is called “teleet.”
The barley-grass is cut by the grooms, by tearing handfuls of it
against a curved toothed sickle fixed upright in a piece of wood, and
is given from two to four inches long. As the horse is given “teleet,”
his grain is diminished, and, when he is on full grass, stopped
altogether; as he gets more and more grass, his teeth get blunt, and
do not break the grain, and on leaving off grass his barley has to be
soaked.
A horse on grass cannot do any serious work, and the gentlest
canter will put him in a lather. Of course it is very difficult to march a
horse when on grass, and in Persia it can only be had in the spring;
and unless he is going from a country where the season is early to
one where it is late, the animal has to do without grass altogether, or
even to march on “teleet”—a very dangerous thing, as he will often
break down. The Persians are very fond of seeing their horses fat,
particularly the townsmen, so that these latter will keep their beasts
on entire grass for two months, and on “teleet” seven months in the
year, giving clover, too, mixed with the “kah,” when they can get it.
The result is an animal bursting with fat, very irritable and restive, but
who can do no work.
To old horses “nawallah,” or balls of dough made of barley flour
and water, are given; the animals take to this, which is the usual
camel food, and will look fat and work well when they have not a
tooth in their heads.
During the only grape season that I was in Hamadan, the fruit was
so cheap that we put our horses on a diet of it for a week. Hasseens,
or earthen pans of tile, were affixed to the wall in the mangers, and
the horses grew extremely fat on a diet of grapes alone.
Persian horses, like Persian women, age early; possibly they are
ridden too young; the two-year-old is often put to hard work, and an
animal of nine is an old horse.
The young colt of two is termed a no zin, or newly fit for the
saddle. On one occasion I had removed a tooth for the Zil-es-sultan,
the Governor of Ispahan (the king’s eldest son). As it came out at
once he was much pleased, and gave me an order on his master of
horse for an “asp-i-no zin,” “a horse just ready for the saddle,”
meaning a two-year-old.
I sent over the order, and to my disgust got back an eight-months-
old colt. This, of course, was of comparatively little value. I did not
like to complain, for “one must not look a gift-horse in the mouth,”
and the master of horse was an acquaintance, and the prince’s
maternal uncle.
I had recourse to stratagem, being put on my mettle by ironical
questions from my Persian friends, as to whether I had ridden my
horse, etc.
The prince was about to review the troops, and I sent a polite
message to the master of the horse, asking the loan of a Persian
saddle, for, said I, “I want to ride out on my new horse, and to thank
the prince for his present.” This brought the master of the horse
(“mir-achor,” or “lord of the manger”) to my house to call on his dear
friend the English doctor. Pipes were smoked, tea drunk, and then I
was asked why I wanted a Persian saddle.
“You see, the prince’s present has been probably only used to a
Persian saddle, having been just broken in, and I have none.”
“But, dear doctor sahib, he is not fit to ride, he is eight months old.”
“Oh, my friend, you, as the mir-achor, are far too good a servant of
his Royal Highness to give me other than his order said, a horse fit
for the saddle—the order said so, so he must be fit for the saddle. I
ride him out to the review to-morrow, and shall thank the prince.”
The mir-achor sighed, and with a half-wink said, “I see you don’t
like the colt, I shall send you another; in fact, some to choose from.”
“Many, many thanks, let them be good, or I shall surely ride out on
the one I have; and in case I don’t take any of those you send, don’t
forget the saddle.”
The mir-achor left, and in an hour sent me over three full-grown
but worthless brutes to choose from.
I sent them back, telling his servants that I would send for the
saddle their master would lend me.
The grooms returned with a full-grown horse of considerable
value, which I took, and returned the worthless eight-months-old colt.
I was duly felicitated on my action by my Persian friends, and was
told that I had behaved in a very diplomatic way.
The horses most in use in Persia are, in the north, the Turkoman,
rarely seen south of Teheran, and despised in Fars—a tall, ungainly
animal, sometimes over sixteen hands, with no barrel, heavy head,
but great stride and endurance.
These Turkomans, when one is on them, give the idea of riding on
a gate, there is so little between the knees. They will get over, at a
jog or loose canter, one hundred miles a day, and will keep it up for
ten days. Their gallop is apparently slow, but, from the length of
stride, they get over a great deal of ground.
They are, however, not sure-footed, and quite useless on bad
roads and hilly country, having a tendency to fall. I have never seen
a Persian of condition ride a Turkoman horse himself, though many
great personages keep several for show, on which they mount
servants. In their own plains, and for the long expeditions for plunder
(“chuppaos”) made by the Turkomans, they are doubtless invaluable;
they are able to go without water for three days, and to subsist on
the hardest and scantiest fare, and after the severe training they
undergo previous to these expeditions, they will get over an amount
of ground that no other breed could hope to cover. Their paces are
rough and uncomfortable. They vary in price from kerans three
hundred to kerans five thousand; the usual price is four hundred to
six hundred for a good one. The mane is in some cases almost
wanting, and what there is is generally removed by a knife, and the
stubble burnt off by a hot iron, or by means of gunpowder or
depilatory. This gives the breed an unearthly and incomplete
appearance. The tail, too, is very slenderly provided with hair.
The “Karabagh”—also used in the north and towards the Caspian;
he is seldom seen south of Teheran—is a miniature edition of the
English hunter: big-boned and clean-limbed, he stands fourteen and
a half to sixteen hands; the latter is, however, an unusual size; he is
generally evil-tempered, but is up to hard work, and always has a
black mark running from the mane to the insertion of the tail; his
mane is thick, so is his tail; his head is heavy. Many big horses are
produced in Teheran from the mixture of the Turkoman and
Karabagh, but they are leggy, and retain the tendency of the
Turkoman to fall on stony ground. They are called “Yamūt;” the price
is two hundred and fifty to five hundred kerans. There is an
underbred look about both species.
Ispahan produces a peculiar kind of cob, with great weight-bearing
powers, short-legged, big barrelled, never exceeding fourteen hands,
often less. These animals are taught to amble, and are capable of
carrying heavy men or heavier loads. The neck is generally very
short and thick. Often very full of go, they are seldom fast, but have
much bottom, are very hardy, and stand exposure and hard work.
They have a clumsy appearance, enormous manes and tails, and
often a good deal of long hair under the jaw; all have huge ears and
coarse coats; the colour is generally grey; their appetites are
enormous, and they eat more than larger horses. Price, from one
hundred and twenty to four hundred kerans. This, I am convinced, is
the natural horse of Persia.
The horses of Shiraz, or “Gulf Arabs” as they are called in India,
because they are shipped from the Persian Gulf for the Indian
market, are the result of cross-breeding from big Persian mares by
the smaller and better-bred Arab horse. They are practically the best
horses in the country, quite free from vice, fast, and with most of the
good points of the Arab, particularly the small head. In the good ones
the forehead (brow) is always very convex, never flat. The ears are
small and carried well. The tail is carried, as the Persians put it, like
a flag, the tail-bone very short and straight. Among the natives, if the
tail is carried at all on one side, and not well up, it considerably
detracts from the animal’s value. They frequently dock the tail-bone,
but the hair is never shortened. Grey is the usual colour; though
there are many chestnuts and bays, I never saw a black. The barrel
and chest are very large, and the body short and compact; they have
magnificent shoulders, and are full of bottom. The better ones are
not at all goose-rumped, which all other breeds in Persia, except
Arabs, are, while the hoofs are large and healthy. These horses are
always full of spirit, and willing, their faults being that they are a little
delicate, and dainty feeders; they are very sure-footed, going at full
speed over the roughest ground or loose stones. They all pull, and,
from the severe nature of the Persian bit, are hard-mouthed, till they
have been ridden on the snaffle for some months. Many have a
tendency to shy, but no other vices; they stand fourteen and a half to
fifteen hands, and cost from five hundred to two thousand kerans.
The real Arabs, which come from Baghdad and the frontier, in the
Kermanshah Province, are too well known to need description, and
are all that the heart could desire, save as to size. They stand
thirteen three to fourteen two, seldom more, and cost from five
hundred kerans up to anything.
In the last fifteen years the price of horses has gone up from fifty
to eighty per cent.; this is due to the steady drain for the Indian
market, and also to the famine, when thousands were starved to
death and thousands more killed and eaten, and to opium-growing in
lieu of corn.
When I first came to Persia a fair yabū, or pony, could be got for
one hundred and twenty kerans; they cost now (1883) two hundred
to two hundred and forty. Horses in proportion. But the Gulf Arabs
are very cheap in Teheran, which is by far the best place to buy
horses in.
To return. We have smoked and chatted till eight o’clock, when our
dinner is put on the table—soup, tinned fish, a leg of mutton,
potatoes, a custard-pudding; these have been properly cooked, and
are served hot.
Save the eggs and the milk for the custard, we brought all these
good things from Hamadan, and the cook deserves great credit, for
his kitchen has been merely a corner of the post-house yard, his
range three or four bricks, and he has roasted his leg of mutton in a
saucepan, and sent it to table with delicious gravy; and thus we fare
daily while on the road. Some men, even when marching, insist on a
hot breakfast on the road itself, of three or four courses, but this is
only needful when there are ladies. Dinner over, kalians and coffee
are brought. Our beds are made one on each side of the fireplace,
but not on the ground, for we have tressel bedsteads, and ten sees
us fast asleep.
A fertile plain brings us, next morning’s stage, to Kangawar, a
large and prosperous village. Here the climate grows warmer. It is a
very well-watered district, and the people seem well-to-do. In fact, in
Persia, wherever there is water there is prosperity.
There is the ruin here of a temple said to have been erected to
Diana; nothing seems to be known about it, and it is only memory
that tells me that some authority gives it as a temple to Diana.
However, the four stone columns, minus their capitals, are still
standing; they are united by a mud wall, and form part of a villager’s
house.
In the swamp in front of the village we go out for snipe; Pierson
gets three brace and one double snipe. I manage to get a teal, which
I pot from behind some reeds, the snipe being as yet too much for
me. I also shoot several snippets, but am disappointed when Pierson
tells me to throw them away. I have one cooked in defiance—it is
uneatable.
We stop two days in Kangawar, and live in a tent. This is a very
comfortable one, with double walls, the property of Government,
made, so a label on it says, at the school at Jubbulpoor. It is
constructed, so another label tells me, for two subalterns. It has a
passage a yard wide between the walls, which keeps it cool in
summer. We find it chilly at night, and as we have no stove we are
unable to light a fire. The second day Pierson gets several double
snipe, and I get very wet.
On our next march we come upon the Kara-Su (black water) River,
and see a valley teeming with bird-life—herons, ducks, geese, what
appear to be black swans, cormorants, cranes of various colours,
from the big white “leg-leg” with black wings, to small and graceful
ones of pure white; mallards, teal, and widgeon. They unfortunately
are on the other side of the river, which is unfordable here, in a
swamp which extends for miles.
As we near Sana we see a man and woman seated on a mound
commanding the road, under a big green cotton umbrella, near a
grove. The woman, gaily dressed, with her face painted and without
any veil, her hair in long tails, strung with coins, importunately

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The Construction of Canadian Identity

from Abroad Christopher Kirkey

More information about this series at

ISSN 2523-7187 ISSN 2523-7195 (electronic)

Cover illustration: Vladislav Mitic/Alamy Stock Photo

people happy not to be a great power but confident and committed to

of what it means to be an expatriated Canadian and how one goes about

This collection, and the insights found in each of the essays, is a

June 2021 Michael K. Hawes

The immediate origins of this book arose out of a conversation between

of Canadian identity for Canadian scholars working beyond Canada’s

Plattsburgh, USA Christopher Kirkey

Part I Introduction: The Construction of Canadian

Part II Exile, Scholarship, and Rethinking Canada and

Part III Multiple Layers of Externality

Part IV Remaining Unmoored—Externality and

Part V Disciplinary Focus and the Question of

15 Cha(lle)nging Representations of Canada in Italy 301

Part VI Externality and Canadian and Professional

Jason Blake is a Professor in the University of Ljubljana’s English

Julie Burelle is a Dramaturg and an Assistant Professor in the Depart-

Studies (2011–2013), President of the Peace Science Society (2016–17),

of Language, Culture, and Identity in Eastern Canada (University of

(EHESS, Paris), a Ph.D. in Canadian History (Laval University), and she

AAA American Anthropological Association

EDI Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

SUNY State University of New York

Fig. 9.1 Canada’s landmass compared to Switzerland’s (Source

Table 14.1 Systemist notation 289

Introduction: The Construction of Canadian

Spatial Dislocation, Canadian Expats,

Christopher Kirkey and Richard Nimijean

A few decades ago, corporate Canada tapped into a burgeoning sense

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 3

Stories” campaign (Cormack 2008), appealed to Canadian consumers’

We witnessed the rise of “non-national” workers (Skovgaard-Smith and

To overcome the negative perception of expats, Senator Woo argues

sciences bring an unparalleled level of scholarly expertise and profes-

Focus of the Book

most recently reignited by Stackhouse (2020), Global Canada (2020),

• Is Canada placed in a comparative context?

Contributors were also asked to appraise how they identified and

Canadian Studies associations—detail how they approach and navigate the

Contents of the Book

Massachusetts, he examines how the expatriate condition (using the trope

racism in institutions of higher education to examine the varied mani-

However, in Canada, the challenge is one of authenticity. What does a

presence of a worldwide community of Canadianists, and globalization

Canada, Canada forms an important part of their profile as expat Canadi-

After an apparently interminable Persian dinner, which consisted

Leave for Kermanshah, marching—Detail of arrangements—Horse feeding—

On Pierson’s return to Hamadan, I gladly prepared to start with

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