Browsing by Author "Belisle, Donica"

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Open Access
Anti-Black Racism in Food Advertising: Rogers’ Golden Syrup and the Imagery of White Supremacy in the Canadian West
(University of California Press, 2021-05-01) Belisle, Donica
Between 1947 and 1958, B.C. Sugar—western Canada’s largest sugar manufacturer—ran six major advertising campaigns that depicted Black people as laborers on sugarcane plantations. One of these campaigns, moreover, played upon offensive stereo types of Black men as happy-go-lucky, childlike, and suited for manual labor. Analyzing the reach, content, and significances of these campaigns, this article suggests that despite increased civil and human rights advocacy in the 1940s and 1950s, at least one major Canadian corporation persisted in distributing anti-Black racist advertising. Such persistence reveals that white supremacist sentiment was entrenched in western Canada during this time. It also suggests that the western Canadian sugar industry particularly, and the North American food industry more generally, have been prone to anti-Black racism within advertising.
Open Access
Celebration Of Authorship Program 2019-2020
(University of Regina Library, 2020) Afolabi, Taiwo; Belisle, Donica; Beveridge, Daniel M.; Brigham, Mark; Duggleby, Jim; Fox, Bevann; Grimard, Céleste; Hillabold, Jean R. (pen name: Jean Roberta); Hu, Shuchen; Koops, Sheena; Lewis, Patrick; Lockhart, Daniel; Marsh, Charity; Oehler, Alex; Petry, Yvonne; Powell, Marie; Pridmore, Helen; Reul, Barbara; Robertson, Lloyd Hawkeye; Ruddell, Rick; Schultz, Christie; Stonechild, A. Blair
While our physical circumstances may have changed this year, the commitment of the Dr. John Archer Library and Archives to celebrate the many and varied accomplishments of University of Regina’s authors has not. While we cannot gather together to celebrate in person, this booklet highlights the impressive and wide-ranging scholarship of our faculty, staff, alumni, and students. One of the things that we have learned in this unprecedented time is that even when we are apart, the written word creates community. I want to recognize and congratulate all of our 2020 authors, and thank them for their contributions to building our local, provincial, national, and international communities.
Open Access
Central Canada's Patrick Riel: Metis Soldiers, English Canadian Settler Mythmaking, and the First World War
(Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2021-03) Schiffmann, Eric; Belisle, Donica; Flood, Dawn; Daschuk, James; Dempsey, L. James
This thesis examines myths surrounding First World War soldier Patrick Riel and argues that white Canadian settlers have created a variety of stories about Patrick Riel’s supposedly Métis identity. Settler-propagated stories about Patrick Riel started after his untimely death in January 1916. In a few short weeks, news of his death had made headlines across Canada. Several war promoters, including the famous Max Aitken (also known as Lord Beaverbrook) and such lesser-known figures as Walter Gordon and Reverend R. G. McBeth propagated myths about Patrick Riel. By 1917, they had turned Patrick Riel into a heroic Métis sharpshooter and a nephew of Louis Riel. The problem is that Patrick Riel was not a member of the Métis Nation. He was also not Louis Riel’s “nephew” or “grandson,” as some have claimed. Through an examination of this soldier and subsequent events, we can learn how settler war promoters and writers have constructed a Métis identity for Patrick Riel. We can also see why English Canadians invented connections between Patrick Riel and Louis Riel. Investigations of these stories allow insights into how colonialism operates and how English Canadian settlers have sought to co-op Métis heroes into settler culture and history.
Open Access
Consuming the Counterculture: The Evolution of Products and Advertisements in 1960s America
(Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2021-07) Mazer, Robert John; Flood, Dawn; Belisle, Donica; Charrier, Philip; Cooley, Will
Consumer-culture in 1960s America changed dramatically from previous decades. As highlighted by scholars such as Thomas Frank, a Creative Revolution occurred within advertising and consumer-culture during the decade. Concurrently, organizations filled with America’s youth, such as the New Left and the counterculture, sought social and cultural change. The emergence of the hippies from within this young generation also caused a shift within American advertising strategies. This thesis analyzes advertisements from a variety of mainstream and underground print media publications from 1960 to 1973, to understand how, and how often, themes of hippiedom were co-opted in order to both sell products, and to bring hippies back into mainstream American culture. The influx of hippie advertisements in the 1960s created what we can now observe as a consumer counterculture. The consequences of this consumer counterculture are still visible today, through the many enduring ideals of the counterculture that have continued past the long 1960s: such as, free love, free speech, anti-authoritarianism, among others. As well, attempts by advertisers to co-opt similar ideals to sell products continues into contemporary consumer-culture.
Open Access
Eating Clean: Anti-Chinese Advertising and the Making of White Racial Purity in the Canadian Pacific
(Taylor & Francis, 2020-01-09) Belisle, Donica
Between 1891 and 1914, western Canada’s largest sugar manufacturer – BC Sugar – constructed a racialized discourse of food cleanliness. This discourse argued that Chinese-made sugars were contaminated while Canadian-made sugars were clean. Through an analysis of this discourse, this article argues that BC Sugar constructed a purity/polluted binary that suggested that white consumers’ racial purity was threatened by Chinese-made sugars. It then links BC Sugar’s clean foods campaign to three broader trends. First, it illustrates that BC Sugar’s construction of pure versus polluted foods supported the effort to establish white supremacy in the Canadian Pacific. Second, it demonstrates that discourses of food purity enabled white settlers to construct bodily purity by the eating of so-called clean foods. Third, it argues that since contemporary discourses of food cleanliness rely on pure versus polluted metaphors, scholars must attend to the motivations driving today’s clean eating movement.
Open Access
Land and Colonization: A Nehinuw (Cree) Perspective
(Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2021-03) Goulet, Keith Napoleon; Daschuk, James; Brown, Jennifer; Belisle, Donica; Stevenson, Allyson; Farrell-Racette, Sherry; Innes, Robert
This dissertation is about land, colonization, and Indigenous people. While focusing broadly on Algonquian peoples, special attention is given to the Spruce Island Cree of Cumberland House in northeastern Saskatchewan. The use of the Nehinuw (Cree) language and cultural historical knowledge provides new factual information, and new conceptual understandings on the issue of land and adjoining matters that critique, reaffirm or challenge existing assumptions and misconceptions regarding Indigenous peoples, Algonquian peoples, and the people of Kaminstigominuhigoskak, Spruce Island (Cumberland House). This study begins with a review and critique of twentieth century scholarship on Algonquian land tenure which mainly arose as a consequence of Indigenous land claims. This literature is analysed and critiqued using Cree conceptual knowledge and understanding. Methodological issues surrounding the use of Cree Nehinuw narratives and oral history are analysed. The historical dynamics, developments, and events that have impacted the people and the land will be examined including: the discovery doctrine, Rupert’s Land, the Royal Proclamation of 1763, the fur trade, smallpox, the Metis, the First Nations treaties, and the discriminatory pressures of government policy, law and the influx of European settlers. Examples of cultural exchange stemming from the interaction between Europeans and Indigenous people will be presented, for example, a review on how the view of the land as Mother Earth evolved in English as well as its unique four stage development in the Nehinuw (Cree) language. As a response to the limitations of existing academic research and a re-examination of the history especially as it pertains to Cree and Algonquian lands, the use of Nehinuwehin (Cree language) and Cree understandings provide the evidence and overview of the Kaminstigominuhigoskak, Spruce Island (Cumberland) Cree concept of territoriality. Nehinuwehin (Cree language), Nehinuw (Cree) content and Cree methodological devices including grammatical analysis are used to examine relevant and meaningful key Nehinuw concepts such as nituskeenan/kituskeenuw our land, our national territory; pugitinasowin, which does not mean gifting but instead means a tributary offering; major forms of Cree narrative including ahtotumohina, (stories of events), achimohina, ( stories of activities) and achunoogehina, (legendary stories); and Keewetin, the “going home” or north wind and its connection to glaciers. Conjointly with this new historical evidence of Cree conceptual understanding, this research exposes the far-reaching effects of colonization and racism that continue to be reflected in words, narratives, and actions. New analysis using the Cree –gan concept of artificial substitution exposes the far-reaching tentacles of colonization and racism that are deeply entrenched in the very grammar of the Cree Nehinuw language. Ogimaw, the genuine leader or chief of a traditional Cree nation, literally became ogimagan, the subordinate artificial chief or leader in the new Indian Affairs Chief and Council system. When it comes to the specific case of land, uskee, the genuine land of the whole becomes uskeegan, meaning the artificial plot of land or private property. While the land of the whole nation continues to be referred to as our land and our national territory, the more specific individual or “family” private property becomes uskeeganis or the little artificial plot of land. For the European, private property is elevated as an essential part of “civilizing” ideology while the Cree looked upon it as being an artificial substitute of the genuine land of the whole. Cree Nehinuw knowledge, methodology, and perspectives provide the foundational base in this research. The decolonization of historical methodology requires constructive critical action at the specific language and cultural historical levels of a particular Indigenous Nation which in this case is the Kaminstigominuhigoskak or Spruce Island (Cumberland) Cree. This study outlines specific Cree Nehinuw methodological devices and the substantive finding that the Cree Nehinuw term for “our land” and “our country’ and “our national territory’ is “nituskeenan/kituskeenuw.” This finding directly challenges the existing research which limits the Cree or Algonquian concepts of land as being based on the individual or “family” rather than the nation. New Cree geopolitical territorial concepts that include use, resources, camps, homelands, places of existence, gathering centres and shared lands are introduced to provide the substantive basis and critical contextual shift from the Euro-centred view on the issue of land to a more balanced perspective where Indigenous language and understandings are given a more thorough and substantive recognition.
Open Access
Pierre Trudeau's Just Society: Bold Aspirations Meet Realities of Governing
(Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2018-09) Chestney, Jason Michael; Blake, Raymond; Belisle, Donica; Leyton-Brown, Kenneth; Rasmussen, Ken
This thesis considers Pierre Trudeau’s first term as prime minister from 1968 to 1972 to determine his success in delivering on his key promise of a Just Society made during the 1968 electoral campaign. Trudeau had promised that his government would remove all social and economic barriers to allow the full participation of all citizens to enjoy all of the democratic, social, and economic benefits Canada had to offer. It investigates why, in the span of less than four years, the central message embodied in Trudeau’s 1968 electoral platform largely disappeared from his government’s agenda. This thesis contends that the Just Society fell victim to a variety of factors, notably the realities of governing which require a bureaucratic and pragmatic approach rather than an idealistic one, opposition from significant segments of the Canadian public, and the difficulty inherent in the political system of implementing idealistic reforms within a four-year election cycle. As prime minister, Trudeau found that his lofty and laudable ‒ and inherently ambitious and idealistic ‒ plans to remake Canada became a casualty to a pragmatic policy-making process that required him to deal with the realities of governing a large, diversified, and often divided, country that Canada was. The Just Society’s disappearance from the Liberal Government’s agenda and rhetoric also parallels the drop in the popular enthusiasm for Trudeau himself, or the “Trudeaumania” euphoria, that had marked Trudeau’s entry into prime ministerial politics. The notions of a Just Society and Trudeau were closely connected, it is argued here, and the Canadian public had high expectations in 1968, largely because of his ambitious promise of the Just Society. Many voters were disappointed when he failed to deliver on his promise. Through exploring the failure around his promise of a Just Society, this thesis offers a new interpretation of Trudeau, the challenges around the ambitious promises he made about a Just Society, and the realities of governing a modern, diverse and regionalized democracy. By 1972 the idea of a Just Society had largely disappeared from Trudeau’s, and the Liberal party’s, political discourse.
Open Access
Rationing desire: Canadian sugar rationing in Second World War advertising
(Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2022-11) Adams, Brandi Marie; Belisle, Donica; Rowe-McCulloch, Maris; Blake, Raymond; Elvins, Sarah
Through a study of advertisements in the English Canadian press between 1939 and 1947, this thesis explores Canada’s Second World War sugar ration program. Canadian Second World War coupon rationing began with sugar, and Canadian advertisers referenced sugar rations regularly to sell a variety of consumer goods. This thesis argues that advertisers approached the subject of sugar rationing through eight advertising strategies throughout the Second World War and in the immediate postwar years. By portraying sugar and sugar rations in creative ways, advertisers were able to maintain relevancy and even increase sales in some circumstances.
Open Access
The prudent visionary: Mackenzie King's calculated leadership for a complex nation
(Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2024-03) Dean, Brady Stephen; Blake, Raymond; Belisle, Donica; Keshen, Jeff
William Lyon Mackenzie King's enduring political legacy as Canada's longest-serving Prime Minister can be attributed to his ability to balance visionary leadership with political pragmatism. Through a nuanced understanding of Canada's complexity and its historical cleavages, King crafted his vision to align with the nation's readiness for change, while strategically avoiding actions that might threaten national unity. This study delves into King's intricate decision-making process, analyzing key moments throughout his political career, and culminating in the cancelled 1948 trade deal with the United States. By examining King's speeches, diaries, and policies, this research highlights how he carefully and meticulously pursued his vision for Canada. Such an appraisal of King’s leadership challenges the depiction of King by academics as indecisive and acting only to maintain political power. Moreover, this thesis argues that King's deliberate actions and inaction during critical junctures, such as during the conscription crisis during the Second World War and various policies to address both national and international circumstances while he was Prime Minister, demonstrates his leadership skills. In short, this thesis sheds light on the nuanced interplay between King's political maneuvering and his steadfast commitment to a vision for Canada that privileged national unity primarily while moving Canada in a direction that he believed best for the nation and for Canadians.
Open Access
Undressing an American icon: Addressing the representation of Calamity Jane through a critical study of her costume
(Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2016-12) McComb, Catherine Mary; Irwin, Kathleen; Pearce, Wes; Belisle, Donica
This investigation studies Martha Jane Canary, known as Calamity Jane, with focus on her apparel, the buckskin outfit of a scout. This thesis looks at Calamity Jane’s costume because it was so seminal to her emergence as an American frontier icon. Unlike one-off costumes such as Dorothy’s ruby slippers or Marilyn Monroe’s JFK birthday dress, Calamity Jane’s costume re-occurred and was the determining factor in her rise to fame. What is innovative in this research is the use of critical costume theory as a methodology to revisit the history of Calamity Jane. This thesis considers Calamity Jane’s garments as a biographical construct, containing conceptual elements and acting essentially as a floating semiotic signifier representing: 1) a woman’s ability to survive in the frontier west; 2) its construction of relative freedom for women from normative social structures and; 3) cultural assumptions around what gender is and does. It is her costume that therefore elevated the figure of Calamity Jane to iconic proportions in western frontier mythology.