ABSTRACT
In Canada, as elsewhere today, problems regarding the representation of otherness figure with a tenacity that has put considerable pressure on all those involved in practices affecting the cultural and political economy of the country. Be it the aboriginal peoples’ right to self-government, or Quebec as a ‘distinct society’, or race, gender and ethnicity as perceived by the Canada Council, the Secretary of State, and other state and cultural agencies, otherness as a synonym for ethnic and/or racial minoritisation is riddled with the desire, indeed the imperative, to be described and re-constructed. It is certainly not accidental that at a time when we are warned daily against the dangers of cultural appropriation, we are also made witnesses to a slowly emerging new polity of the space we have come to know as Canada.
