On the Concept of Region in Canadian History and Literature

On the Concept ofRegion in Canadian History and Literature WILLIAM WESTFALL During the last decade the region has assumed a position of prominence in Canadian studies. Departments have expanded their offerings to include courses on regional history and literature; a growing number of articles, anthologies , and monographs have focused upon regions and regional cultures; and even the Canadian academic profession has shown signs of reorganizing itself along regional lines as new regional research centres and conferences compete with older national institutions for support. The region seems destined to rival, if not replace, the nationstate as the central construction in Canadian studies. Many of the reasons for this growth are straightforward and need little elaboration. Scholarship undergoes a continual process of revision in relation to new evidence, new methodologies, and the implications of contemporary experience. The ramifications of Americanization, Quebec nationalism, and Alberta's energy resources upon the national political economy and the popular understanding of federalism have prompted many to reconsider the character of their nationalist assumptions and turn to new interpretive structures . On an ideological level, the growing stress upon regions reflects a general adherence to the value of pluralism and diversity in Canadian culture . The rhetoric that is invested in regions is at this level the geographical counterpart to the public allegiance that is rendered to such ideas as the Canadian ethnic mosaic. The new interest in regions and regional cultures , however, is considerably more significant than these general considerations might indicate. Even at this relatively early point it is clear that Journal ofCanadian Studies Vol. 15, No. 2(Ete1980Summer) the concept of region is leading Canadian studies through an important intellectual reorientation. In order to accommodate the growing wealth of regional studies, disciplines such as Canadian history and Canadian literature have reworked or rejected a number of doctrines that have defined their practice for many years. Ramsay Cook, for example, has called upon his profession to forsake the futile search for the illusive Canadian identity and devote itself to the study of regional identities. Reacting to the stridency with which the centennial celebrations tried to proclaim a single national identity, Professor Cook questioned publicly the assumptions that coloured this mammoth undertaking. Perhaps, he suggested, the search for a national identity was doomed from the start, and instead of looking for a national identity that might not exist, we should study ''the regional, ethnic, and class identities that we do have." I Professor Cook's call for change points towards a new way of defining Canada, Canadian culture, and the Canadian identity. It is against this background of growth and reorientation that this study explores and comments upon the new interest in regions and regional cultures. As one would expect, regional studies are diverse and wide-ranging: without the coherence provided by the framework of the nationstate , regional scholarship has travelled in any number of directions. For this reason it would be almost impossible to catalogue and analyze all of this new work. Nonetheless, in the midst of this diversity one can discern certain patterns that inform the regional movement in Canadian studies. The concept of region, especially in Canadian historical writing and literary criticism, has developed in a definable and interesting fashion. In both disciplines one finds the same revisionist tone, the same determination to reexamine Canada in regional terms, and the same difficulties in arriving at a satisfactory way of defining regions and regional cultures. One also finds in both the attempt to use the concept of region to solve the age old riddle of the Canadian identity, and this last theme provides a commentary upon the entire regional exercise for it reveals a good deal about the aesthetic structures that underlie Canadian studies itself. 3 * * * The quantity of new regional studies2 along with its revisionist tone would seem to indicate that historians and literary critics have become aware of regions only in the last few years. A longer view of Canadian writing, however, reveals that the "newness" of regional studies is in itself a regional question. 3 A strong tradition of local and regional writing has existed (outside of Toronto) for almost as long as people have written about Canada. The dominant position of national...