Search results for ""Author Franca Iacovetta""

For almost two decades before Canada officially adopted multiculturalism in 1971, a large network of women and their allies in Toronto were promoting pluralism as a city- and nation-building project. Before Official Multiculturalism assesses women as liberal pluralist advocates and activists, critically examining the key roles they played as community organizers, frontline social workers, and promoters of ethnic festivals. The book explores women’s community-based activism in support of a liberal pluralist vision of multiculturalism through an analysis of the International Institute of Metropolitan Toronto, a postwar agency that sought to integrate newcomers into the mainstream and promote cultural diversity. Drawing on the rich records of the Institute, as well as the massive International Institutes collection in Minnesota, the book situates Toronto within its Canadian and North American contexts and addresses the flawed mandate to integrate immigrants and refugees into an increasingly diverse city. Before Official Multiculturalism engages with national and international debates to provide a critical analysis of women’s pluralism in Canada.

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For almost two decades before Canada officially adopted multiculturalism in 1971, a large network of women and their allies in Toronto were promoting pluralism as a city- and nation-building project. Before Official Multiculturalism assesses women as liberal pluralist advocates and activists, critically examining the key roles they played as community organizers, frontline social workers, and promoters of ethnic festivals. The book explores women’s community-based activism in support of a liberal pluralist vision of multiculturalism through an analysis of the International Institute of Metropolitan Toronto, a postwar agency that sought to integrate newcomers into the mainstream and promote cultural diversity. Drawing on the rich records of the Institute, as well as the massive International Institutes collection in Minnesota, the book situates Toronto within its Canadian and North American contexts and addresses the flawed mandate to integrate immigrants and refugees into an increasingly diverse city. Before Official Multiculturalism engages with national and international debates to provide a critical analysis of women’s pluralism in Canada.

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In the early 1970s, when women's history began to claim attention as an emerging discipline in North American universities, it was dominated by a middle-class Anglo-Saxon bias. Today the field is much more diverse, a development reflected in the scope of this volume. Rather than documenting the experiences of women solely in a framework of gender analysis, its authors recognize the interaction of race, class, and gender as central in shaping women's lives, and men's. These essays represent an exciting breakthrough in women's studies, expanding the borders of the discipline while breaking down barriers between mainstream and women's history.

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Spanning more than two hundred years of history, from the eighteenth century to the twenty-first, Sisters or Strangers? explores the complex lives of immigrant, ethnic, and racialized women in Canada. Among the themes examined in this new edition are the intersection of race, crime, and justice, the creation of white settler societies, letters and oral histories, domestic labour, the body, political activism, food studies, gender and ethnic identity, and trauma, violence, and memory. The second edition of this influential essay collection expands its chronological and conceptual scope with fifteen new essays that reflect the latest cutting-edge research in Canadian women's history. Introductions to each thematic section include discussion questions and suggestions for further reading, making the book an even more valuable classroom resource than before.

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In the recent campaign led by the National Congress of Italian Canadians to gain redress for compatriots interned during the Second World War, leaders claimed that the Canadian state had waged a 'war against ethnicity.' Their version of history, argue the editors, drew on selective evidence and glossed over the fascist past of some Italian Canadians.The editors have assembled scholars who, while having diverse views, seek to stimulate informed debate. Enemies Within is the first study of its kind to examine not only the formulation and uneven implementation of internment policy, but the social and gender history of internment. It brings together national and international perspectives. The book offers differing interpretations of Italian internment in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia. It invites comparisons between Italian Canadians and Canada's other internees, including Communists, German Canadians, Ukrainian Canadians and Jewish refugees. Contemporary redress campaigns are examined. Masculinity, female internees, Communist women's release politics, and memory culture are some of the little-studied subjects that also receive attention. This book contains photographs never before seen. A general introduction and four section introductions provide valuable background to the issues being discussed.

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Spanning more than two hundred years of history, from the eighteenth century to the twenty-first, Sisters or Strangers? explores the complex lives of immigrant, ethnic, and racialized women in Canada. Among the themes examined in this new edition are the intersection of race, crime, and justice, the creation of white settler societies, letters and oral histories, domestic labour, the body, political activism, food studies, gender and ethnic identity, and trauma, violence, and memory. The second edition of this influential essay collection expands its chronological and conceptual scope with fifteen new essays that reflect the latest cutting-edge research in Canadian women's history. Introductions to each thematic section include discussion questions and suggestions for further reading, making the book an even more valuable classroom resource than before.

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Case files, records from all kinds of social, medical, governmental, military, and other agencies, become available to researchers once confidentiality is no longer in question. Such records are an important source for scholars in social history and related fields, providing insight not only into the lives of ordinary people but into the workings of the agencies that kept the records as well. Case files contain a wealth of information and challenge researchers by their complexity and the variety of approaches and methodologies their analysis demands. On the Case is a timely book intended to provide a forum for discussing the theoretical and methodological issues that case files raise. The book brings together theoretical debates, new research, and new research methods and offers compelling illustrations of the drama, conflict, and power relations that the case file can capture. This collection of essays features some of Canada's leading social historians. Readers will encounter an impressive array of case files, including psychiatrists' accounts of sexual deviants, employment records of sailors, state welfare and Indian Affairs reports, court records, the patient forms of hospital and asylum doctors, and state security files. While the contributors differ in choice of subject and approach, they share a commitment to the progressive traditions of social history. They recover the voices and actions of people - not only of those with power but also of those who seemingly have none.Case files have proved crucial to scholars developing such new fields of historical study as sexuality, gay and lesbian lives, and domestic violence, and have reinvigorated work in more established fields of history such as immigration, security and intelligence, and the modern welfare state. On the Case is unique in offering new research as well as guiding readers through recent debates and the various theoretical and methodological challenges created by case files.

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This collection brings together a wide array of writings on Canadian immigrant history, including many highly regarded, influential essays. Though most of the chapters have been previously published, the editors have also commissioned original contributions on understudied topics in the field. The readings highlight the social history of immigrants, their pre-migration traditions as well as migration strategies and Canadian experiences, their work and family worlds, and their political, cultural, and community lives. They explore the public display of ethno-religious rituals, race riots, and union protests; the quasi-private worlds of all-male boarding-houses and of female domestics toiling in isolated workplaces; and the intrusive power that government and even well-intentioned social reformers have wielded over immigrants deemed dangerous or otherwise in need of supervision. Organized partly chronologically and largely by theme, the topical sections will offer students a glimpse into Canada's complex immigrant past. In order to facilitate classroom discussion, each section contains an introduction that contextualizes the readings and raises some questions for debate. A Nation of Immigrants will be useful both in specialized courses in Canadian immigration history and in courses on broader themes in Canadian history.

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This fascinating book uncovers the little-known, surprisingly radical history of the Portuguese immigrant women who worked as night-time office cleaners and daytime "cleaning ladies" in postwar Toronto. Drawing on union records, newspapers, and interviews, feminist labour historians Susana P. Miranda and Franca Iacovetta piece together the lives of immigrant women who bucked convention by reshaping domestic labour and by leading union drives, striking for workers' rights, and taking on corporate capital in the heart of Toronto's financial district. Despite being sidelined within the labour movement and subjected to harsh working conditions in the commercial cleaning industry, the women forged critical alliances with local activists to shape picket-line culture and make an indelible mark on their communities. Richly detailed and engagingly written, Cleaning Up is an archival treasure about an undersung piece of working-class history in urban North America.

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Just as the Canada's rich past resists any singular narrative, there is no such thing as a singular Canadian food tradition. This new book explores Canada's diverse food cultures and the varied relationships that Canadians have had historically with food practices in the context of community, region, nation and beyond. Based on findings from menus, cookbooks, government documents, advertisements, media sources, oral histories, memoirs, and archival collections, Edible Histories offers a veritable feast of original research on Canada's food history and its relationship to culture and politics. This exciting collection explores a wide variety of topics, including urban restaurant culture, ethnic cuisines, and the controversial history of margarine in Canada. It also covers a broad time-span, from early contact between European settlers and First Nations through the end of the twentieth century. Edible Histories intertwines information of Canada's 'foodways' - the practices and traditions associated with food and food preparation - and stories of immigration, politics, gender, economics, science, medicine and religion. Sophisticated, culturally sensitive, and accessible, Edible Histories will appeal to students, historians, and foodies alike.

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