Placing Memory and Remembering Place in Canada

Placing Memory and Remembering Place in Canada maps a fascinating terrain in memory studies by shifting the focus from nation and empire to local places that sit at the intersection of memory making and identity formation – main streets, city squares, village museums, internment camps, industrial wastelands, and the rural landscape.

While offering a unique perspective on the politics of place and memory across differing chronologies and geographies, the first part of the book, “Commemorations,” traces how local expressions of memory such as celebrations, museums, statues, postcards, and plaques have contributed to a sense of place and belonging in twentieth-century Canada. The second part, “Inscriptions,” in turn explores how ordinary Canadians have embedded their memories of place in oral stories, photographs, and the landscape itself. With its focus on the materiality of image, text, and artefact, these essays argue for an understanding of place as imagined, made, claimed, fought for, and defended – always in a state of becoming.