One time I was given a lesson on how to shake a hand by the managing partner of a major downtown law firm. My grip was too limp, he said. You have to keep it firm. I suppose my handshake was limp. I have always considered the classic grip handshake as a little bit too […]
February 7, 2013
Alberni, Vancouver Island, 1860 We see your ships, and hear things that make our hearts grow faint. They say that more King-George-men will soon be here, and will take our land, our firewood, our fishing grounds; that we shall be placed on a little spot, and shall have to do everything according to the fancies […]
January 31, 2013
Colonial Propaganda and the Law of Aboriginal Title In his book on the creation of Indian reserves in British Columbia, Making Native Space (2002), Cole Harris writes colonialism is increasingly seen as a culture of domination, a set of values that infused European thought and letters; led Europeans confidently out into the world; stereotyped non-Europeans as […]
December 30, 2012
Racism is characteristically a function of colonialism. Thus racism was olive-skinned during the long era of Greek colonialism in the Eastern Mediterranean. It was the colour of the Japanese during the era of Japanese expansionism into Korea and China. It was Aryan during the era of Nazi Germany. It is pale-skinned here and now in […]
September 12, 2011
Myths of the West 3 In his books, The Colonizer’s Model of the World and Eight Eurocentric Historians, historical geographer J.M. Blaut describes a peculiar form of history writing, Europe-centred, which, Blaut suggests, stands in as an implied historical argument and philosophic justification for European colonization, and for the unequal social relationships favouring Europeans which flow from that era. […]
September 10, 2011
1. Eurocentric Diffusionism This is the story of an idea, an historical idea, a geographical idea, a cultural idea. Historical geographer J.M. Blaut calls it Eurocentric diffusionism or just diffusionism, and he describes it as, the notion that European civilization—“The West”—has had some unique historical advantage, some special quality of race or culture or […]
April 14, 2013
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