History

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This is the collection for the University of Waterloo's Department of History.

Research outputs are organized by type (eg. Master Thesis, Article, Conference Paper).

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A Broken History: Examining the Events, Experiences, and Narratives of the High Arctic Relocations, 1950-2010
(University of Waterloo, 2025-01-24) Hossack, Sam; Lackenbauer, P. Whitney
In 1953, the Canadian government moved thirty-five Inuit from Inukjuak in Northern Québec to the High Arctic with promises of better hunting opportunities and the ability to return to their communities within two years if conditions were not to their liking. Two years later, twenty-nine additional Inuit were sent to join them. Since these High Arctic Relocations, government officials, lawyers, and academics have questioned the federal government’s motivations for and responses to the relocations, focusing on the question of whether the government was justified in undertaking an ill-fated humanitarian mission or if the government coerced Inuit into staking Canadian claims to the Arctic. This dissertation explores the legacy and ongoing influence of the relocations in Canadian history by tracing the documentary, experiential, and political narratives surrounding the High Arctic Relocations from the 1950s to the 2010s. This includes critically re-examining the archival evidence from the 1950s; analyzing Inuit testimony of experiences and contemporary storytelling about the relocations; and examining Inuit, government, and academic political narratives from the 1980s through the 2010s. By examining the narratives of the High Arctic Relocations and framing these narratives using the event, experiences, and memory of relocation over the course of seven decades, this study parses the evolving themes and foci as Inuit struggled to secure recognition and compensation for their suffering. This dissertation re-assesses the government’s motivations for relocating Inuit in the early 1950s and includes analysis of the complexities and limits of government decision-making. It also explores the effects of those decisions on Inuit relocatees through an examination of remembered experiences in the 1990s. Finally, this dissertation analyzes the academic and government framing of the narratives of relocation since the 1990s, investigating how these narratives affect contemporary perceptions of government actions. This dissertation demonstrates that the intentions of government officials in the 1950s (the event) and vigorous debate about the perceived motivations of government have superseded the outcomes (experience) of the relocations. This evolving discourse has produced generally-accepted conclusions in Canadian history about the alleged motivations for the relocations that find little grounding in the archival record but which have become a key part of the meta-narrative about state sovereignty, deceit, and coercion in the twentieth century Canadian Arctic.
Threads of Memory: A Culture of Commemoration in Kenya Colony, 1918-1930
(University of Waterloo, 2021-01-05) Clarke, Timothy, 1990-; Lackenbauer, P. Whitney; Peers, Douglas M.
The centenary of the First World War (2014-2018) proffered new interpretations of the conflict as a global war that stretched far beyond the Western Front. Historians of the Great War, however, have continued to characterize the African theatres of the war as ‘sideshows.’ Similarly, Africa has been largely absent from studies of the commemoration and memory of the First World War. While memory studies have contributed to an understanding of the long-term legacy of the conflagration for contemporary nation-states, Africa remains a regrettable exclusion. This study addresses a particular case study – Kenya Colony – as a locus of memory and meaning-making in the wake of the Great War. I argue that Imperial organizations, colonial administrators, and settlers all fashioned the First World War as a validation of the colonial project in East Africa, and the trajectory of the British Empire more generally. In the process, settlers, administrators, and the Imperial War Graves Commission pulled on Empire-wide threads of First World War memory, creating knots of memory that denied Kenyans a meaningful place in the public commemoration of the conflagration. Through their commemorative infrastructure, white settlers in Kenya Colony bolstered their political and social power by referencing the First World War. The memory of the First World War, however, was not homogenous within Kenya’s white community. The culture of commemoration that emerged during the 1920s in Kenya was multifaceted and politically charged. What resulted was a debate on the nature of colonialism in East Africa, where different interest groups posited different interpretations of 1914-1918. Ultimately, even though at least 45,000 Kenyans died in the First World War, on the eve of decolonization the First World War was no longer nationally significant in Kenya, relegating its history to the background of Kenyan politics and history.
A Window into October: Examining the Framing of the October Crisis of 1970 in Canada's English-Language Newspapers
(University of Waterloo, 2019-07-02) Hodgson, Corah Lynn; Lackenbauer, P. Whitney
Much of the historiography on the October Crisis has centred around whether the War Measures Act (WMA) represented a necessary deployment of available legislation to crush a threat to national order and security, or an unjustified assault upon civil liberties. Explorations of the media’s presentation of the crisis have produced divergent conclusions, are largely quantitative rather than qualitative in nature, and do not account for regional differences in the media interpretations of the events. This study deploys a content analysis of the editorials in Canada’s most widely circulated English-language newspapers in October 1970 to interrogate how they framed the crisis, evaluated how the government handled developments, and compared to other regional interpretations. Careful attention was accorded to whether the civil libertarian discourse that dominates the historiography was present in contemporary evaluations of the crisis or is a post facto academic construction. This study concluded that a national discourse existed about the crisis in some respects. English-Canadian newspaper editors unanimously framed the FLQ as terrorists, fanatics, and a criminal “cancer” who threatened Canada’s societal and democratic order and whose villainy was clear in their targeting of such innocent and virtuous victims. Descriptions appeared frequently of a populace fearful of the group’s potential to escalate further and united in support of the government’s measures. Newspapers in each region, particularly Atlantic Canada, initially framed the government as facing a dilemma in its decision of whether to capitulate to terror. The papers from Western Canada, Eastern Canada, and Montreal soon shifted to advocate firmly for a hard-line and law-and-order response to terrorism, and pledged their support for the WMA. Although these papers demonstrated some concern about civil liberties, the WMA’s effectiveness, and the government’s secrecy (particularly towards the end of October), they continued to endorse the emergency measures as defensible and necessary. By contrast, the Toronto Daily Star and Globe and Mail recommended the government negotiate for the victims’ release and critically approached the WMA with civil liberties concerns, elucidations of the measures’ dangers, and doubts which outweighed their support. An “alien conspiracy” framing was more prominent in Western and Eastern Canada than in Central Canada, where editors concentrated their attention on identifying the crisis’ internal roots and offering recommendations on how they should be remedied. While anti-FLQ sentiments pervaded the nation, and pro-government and “alien conspiracy” framings formed a dominant discourse throughout much of Canada, it is clear that the historiographical debate on the WMA bore its roots in October 1970. Revealing a more complex discourse than that noted in previous studies, this finding is also significant given the media’s capacity, through framing, agenda-setting, and priming, to influence popular opinion and the public’s comprehension of issues and events.

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Browsing History by Author "Lackenbauer, P. Whitney"