Gillian
Poulter’s analysis of transitions in Canadian identity through representation
of sport in art and photography provides a theoretical, intersectional, treatment
of the formations of a hybrid identity among middle-class English Canadians in
the nineteenth century “contact zone” of Montreal.[1]
Poulter treats visual images as “enactments of discourses” to argue that British
settlers created and reinforced a Canadian identity for themselves by
appropriating and performing Indigenous sports.[2]
Her analysis positions sport as both a unifying and a fracturing force.[3]
For Poulter, identity is not simply ideological or intellectual, but something
which must be embodied through cultural practices.[4]
Thus, performance is a recurring theme in her work, while she also grapples
with the somewhat slippery concept of intentionality. While some of Poulter’s
theoretical assumptions may lead readers to discredit her work, she offers
discussions of gender and class that are valuable to even the less
theoretically-inclined reader, and her analyses of masculinity are particularly
strong.
The potential
ambiguities over intentionality in Poulter’s work are perhaps a shortcoming of
this monograph. Poulter notes that the subjects of her work did not necessarily
self-consciously work to indigenize themselves through appropriating sporting
activities and other markers of Indigenous culture, instead, their subtle,
systemic application of discursive practices acted as “an invasion from
within.”[5]
Poulter refers frequently to the symbolism which one can read in this contact
zone, describing lacrosse games, for example, as “symbolic reenactments” of the
humiliation of Conquest, for the British to re-live the triumph of winning.[6]
Some representations by British settlers of themselves as masculine and
indigenous, and of Indigenous peoples as uncivilized and feminized, may have
been purposeful. At times, however, it seems that Poulter reads a symbolic
colonial performance into situations which may be less theoretically complex.
Poulter follows
a trend among twenty-first century historians of focusing on everyday people,
rather than those who are elite or otherwise exceptional. Her emphasis on
theory is also not anomalous for the field; consider, for example, Contact Zones: Aboriginal and Settler Women
in Canada’s Colonial Past, an edited collection by Myra Rutherdale and
Katie Pickles, which offers many theoretical treatments of such cultural
junctions.[7]
The more unusual aspect of Poulter’s work is in her particularly detailed
analysis of visual images. Poulter considers in depth an array of sketches,
paintings, and photographs, particularly the work of photographer William
Notman. She intends for her analyses of these images to serve as a model for
other historians wishing for a sophisticated way in which to use visual images
as primary sources.[8]
It is in her use
of photography, unfortunately, that Poulter’s assertion, that cultural appropriation
and the production of hierarchies were often unintentional, goes somewhat awry. As she points out, Notman’s
photographs were carefully staged, though made to appear as candid shots rather
than portraits.[9]
Notman’s series of photographs of hunting in Canada positioned people so as to
convey racial hierarchies, while indigenizing his British subjects to portray
them as comfortable in a wilderness environment.[10]
It is clear from Poulter’s own description of Notman’s photographic style that
his work was especially intentional and performative. This would not be
problematic were it not for Poulter’s neglect to inform her reader as to which actions
and images were intentional on the part of the sportsmen and artists, and which
were subconscious, possibly manifestations of hegemony.
A particularly
fascinating element of Poulter’s monograph is the intersection she notes
between physical space and performance. To Poulter, particular locations served
as metaphorical theatres in which British settlers acted out their new roles as
“indigenous” Canadians. For example, Montreal’s Mount Royal and French-Canadian
farms just outside the city were the sets for settlers, mostly men, to re-enact
the fur trade, “dressing up as ‘composite natives’” to snowshoe across these
landscapes in “cultural performances.”[11]
These settlers created costumes for themselves, and fashioned the landscape
into theatrical sets. This is where Poulter argues that such performances were
not necessarily intentionally designed, but a subconscious act. Despite their
attempts to create “authenticity” in their leisure, the snowshoers were
unlikely to have understood their acts as performances of faux-indigeneity,
masculinity, and middle-class identity.[12]
To Poulter, even the lacrosse field was spatially relevant, dividing a nation
of spectators along class, race, and gender lines.[13]
Poulter’s
discussions of the construction of masculinity through sport is one of the
strongest points of her work, although I would hazard that this strain of
analysis is not particularly unusual among recent sport historians. In his
photographs, the ironically-named William Notman portrayed hunting as a
masculine pursuit, linked with men’s power over women; nationhood was thus the
preserve of men.[14]
Poulter argues that obtaining hunting trophies was a display of male sexuality.[15]
This thread of symbolism was unlikely intentional on the part of the hunters
themselves, but is a recurring motif in discussions of hunting and masculinity.[16]
Poulter elucidates the often-paradoxical binaries that informed and enhanced
constructions of masculinity in the Victorian era. For example, for lacrosse
players, white masculinity acted as a superior contrast to inferior “Indian”
masculinity. Euro-Canadian critics simultaneously portrayed Native lacrosse
players as unfairly skilled and too violent, and as effeminate and weak.[17]
Structurally,
Poulter’s individual chapters read as though they could be stand-alone
articles, and at times they do not speak to one another. Her chapter on the
Northwest Rebellion seems quite out of place, as the links between war and
sport are not as tight as the links between the various sports portrayed in her
other chapters. This is not to say that this chapter does not make significant
conclusions, as her analysis of artwork provides a seldom-seen perspective of
the Rebellions. The thrust of this chapter is an analysis of visual imagery,
and sport is sidelined with only limited discussion of a link between sport and
military as training and spectacle to legitimize her use of this chapter, and a
note that sports clubs actively celebrated the end of the Rebellion.[18]
Ultimately, following this interlude from her discussion of particular sports,
Poulter pulls the monograph together with a discussion of the development of
national identity, providing a broader thematic link in addition to her more
specific conclusions about appropriation and performance.
Ultimately,
Poulter advocates a re-periodization of Canadian sport history, which could be
a potentially valuable, if rather niche, undertaking.[19]
This suggestion becomes problematic, however, with her contention that this new
periodization would situate the beginning of Canadian sport history in 1840,
rather than 1807. Oddly, given the sensitive treatment elsewhere in the
monograph, this makes Indigenous sport history into an invisible part of an
apparently pre-Canadian past, positioning Indigenous peoples, as well as
French-Canadians, as other than Canadian. This erasure is also apparent in her
decision to subtitle her fifth chapter “Canada’s First War.” Poulter’s
theoretical aims are valid and significant, and her use of visual sources is
somewhat out of the ordinary. Her discussions of race, class, and gender are
often, though not consistently, solidly intersectional. Theoretically, her work
is yet another example of analyses of performativity and embodiment to effect
colonial appropriation; I would judge it as being not particularly novel in
this regard. What distinguishes her work is certainly her extensive use of
visual sources as the main thrust of her primary evidence and her use of these
sources to analyze class and masculinity. The overall empirical contribution of
her work, however, is somewhat mitigated by oversights such as inconsistencies
in intentionality and the re-marginalization of Indigenous peoples.
[1]
Gillian Poulter, Becoming
Native in a Foreign Land: Sport, Visual Culture, and Identity in Montreal,
1840-85 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2009), 19.
[2]
Poulter, 14.
[3]
Poulter, 275.
[4]
Poulter, 5.
[5]
Poulter, 13.
[6]
Poulter, 144.
[7]
Katie Pickles and Myra
Rutherdale, eds., Contact Zones: Aboriginal and Settler Women in Canada’s
Colonial Past (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2005).
[8]
Poulter, 14.
[9]
Poulter, 66.
[10]
Poulter, 101, 104-105.
[11]
Poulter, 43, 48, 31, 33.
[12]
Poulter, 63.
[13]
Poulter, 149.
[14]
Poulter, 111, 66.
[15]
Poulter, 111.
[16]
For a discussion of the gendered implications of hunting, see Carol J. Adams, The Sexual
Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory, 20th Anniversary
Edition (New York: Continuum, 2010), 146.
[17]
Poulter, 145-148.
[18]
Poulter, 210, 207.
[19]
Poulter, 270.
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