On multiculturalism's margins: oral history and Afghan former refugees in early twenty-first century Winnipeg

Abstract

Oral historians have long claimed that oral history enables people to present their experiences in an authentic way, lauding the potential of oral history to ‘democratize history’ and assist interviewees, particularly those who are marginalized, to ‘find their voices’. However, stories not only look backward at the past but also locate the individual in the present. As first demonstrated by Edward Said in Orientalism, Western societies have a long history of Othering non-Western cultures and people. While significant scholarly attention has been paid to this Othering, the responses of orientalised individuals (particularly those living in the West) have received substantially less attention. This thesis focuses on the multi-sessional life story oral history interviews that I conducted with five Afghan-Canadians between 2012 and 2015, most of whom came to Canada as refugees. These interviews were conducted during the Harper era, when celebrated Canadian notions of multiculturalism, freedom, and equality existed alongside Orientalist discourses about immigrants, refugees, Muslims, and Afghans. News stories and government policies and legislation highlighted the dangers that these groups posed to the Canadian public, ‘Canadian’ values, and women. Drawing on the theoretical work of notable oral historians including Mary Chamberlain and Alessandro Portelli, I consider the ways in which the narrators talked about themselves and their lives in light of these discourses. I argue that by first reflecting common Canadian narratives on these topics, the interviewees established their Canadian-ness and staked a claim within the national fold. Once they demonstrated themselves to be ‘good’ Canadians, Muslims, and refugees, they were able to nuance and sometimes outright challenge the widespread understandings of these issues reflected in Canadian discourses. This strategy, consciously or unconsciously undertaken, allowed them to deepen their connections to the country while also speaking back against the discourses that placed them on its fringes.