Sunday 27 October 2013

Welcome to a site about race in rural Canada

This blog is a place where I share what I am learning as I am completing a graduate research project on transforming white* racial consciousness in rural Canada. The posts that follow are stories from my own learning journey in understanding racism, and they form an autoethnography of an anti-racist white woman from rural Canada. You can learn more about me in my profile to the right.

I consider myself to be an anti-racist, someone who is aware of:
how racism affects the lived experience of racialized** people and Indigenous people;
- how racism is systemic, and can be seen in both individual attitudes and behaviours as well as in policies and practices within institutions;
- how white people participate, often unknowingly, in racism***

If you are interested in the research, including the narratives of other anti-racist white people who have participated in this study, please check the link to the research project on the right. I will be sharing there what I have learned about whiteness and white privilege; about citizenship education that builds a healthy, democratic, pluralist Canada; and about transformative learning that can help rural Canadians take their place in the daily discussions we have about cultural and racial diversity in society.


This blog is written for anyone who is curious about racism, regardless of how much experience you have on the topic, and it is especially for you if you, like me, are from a rural community or small Canadian town where most people are from British, Irish, or Scottish backgrounds, and there are very few people in your life with origins outside of Europe. 

Feel free to check in from time to time for updates, to leave comments, or contact me with your questions.


* I prefer not to capitalize racialized nouns and adjectives, such as white or black, as I believe this actually over-emphasizes one aspect of our identity when we have so many important facets. It might even aggravate the problem of racism by lumping people into broad categories. Prominent writer and educator bell hooks is one of many who have challenged this writing convention. I am merely one who agrees!
** "Racialized" refers to being a member of a visible minority
*** Definition adapted from CARED, Calgary Anti-Racism Education, University of Calgary