Colonial Continuum: (De)construction of a ‘Canadian Heritage’ at the Fort York National Historic Site

Abstract

 

The Fort York National Historic Site was chosen as the site of research to examine how tourist attractions are constructed through the use of certain images and narratives, which reflect  existing socio-political power dynamics through the processes of selecting and excluding what is represented. Research into media representations of Fort York was first conducted on the websites of Fort York and the City of Toronto on May 15th and May 16th, 2018. Field observations were subsequently conducted at the Fort York National Historic Site on May 20th, 2018, from 3–5 p.m.; May 30th, 2018, from 2–4 p.m.; and June 2nd, 2018, from 3–5 p.m. The analysis illustrates how the social, cultural, and historical constructions of Fort York render Canada and Canadians as conceptually White spaces and bodies, thus reflecting how the Canadian settler state continues to normalize the erasure of Indigenous peoples, communities, identities, and cultures within the contemporary Canadian landscape. Application of queer Indigenous theories then helps to concep­tualize how multiple uninterrupted strands of settler colonialism intersect to form a cohesive but variegated colonial continuum, or the tangible inertia of settler colonialism that self-perpetuates colonial heteronormativity. Queer Indigenous theories are thus argued to provide the framework through which colonized peoples can collectively dismantle the colonial continuum.