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EDITORS’ FOREWORD
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The volume Minorities in Canada - Intercultural Investigations contains
sixteen papers written by scholars based in Canada, Western and Central
Europe (Ireland, Spain, Germany, the Czech Republic, Croatia and Hungary).
The multidisciplinary collection offers reflections on ongoing minority¬
related discourses in Canada from philosophy to healthcare to anthropology
to literary studies. Canadian ethnic communities and Indigenous peoples
feature as the two main thematic nodes papers center around, reflecting on
various inter- and transcultural issues such as the impact of one community
on the other, how policy making has affected a particular community,
communal memory, in-betweenness, identity shifts, appropriation, problems
and conflicts arising from inter- and transcultural encounters as well as
suggestions as to how these can be reconciliated.
Written from an idealist metaphysical perspective, Elizabeth Trott’s
“Multiculturalism as a Discourse in Disguise: A Possible Canadian Solution”
scrutinizes the works of Charles Taylor, Will Kymlika, Colin Mooers, and
Darryl Leroux in order to proffer a reconciliation of the discourses of
Canada as a culture and its current promotion as a multi-cultured state. This
reconciliation is provided through the concept of Canada as a place “where
the freedom to choose activities, the safety to associate with others through
shared interests, and a rational maturity with respect for endless questions,
ambiguities and possible shared understanding, are provided.”
The papers which follow zoom in on a particular ethnic community or
diaspora — immigrants from Russia, the Balkans, Hungary, South and East
Asia. Victoria McGowan’s “Eastern People on Western Prairies: How Early
Eastern European Immigrants Shaped Alberta’s Political Future” discusses
how the beliefs and cultural practices early 20'* century Russian settlers
brought with themselves have continued to impact the attitude of Alberta
farmers towards education and government. As a corollary, the reader’s
attention is called to the potentials of assessing the long-term influence of
large diaspora groups. Next, Chris Kostov’s “Ihe Shifting Identities of the
Bulgarian-Canadian Diaspora, 1900-2015” focuses on the identity shifts the
Bulgarian diaspora has gone through since the beginning of the 20" century,
and what role the homeland and the hostland have played in the process. Nikola
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