Contested Terrains: Ethnic and Gendered Spaces in the Harbour Grace Affray
This article explores the negotiation of ethnicity between English Protestants and Irish Catholics in nineteenth-century Conception Bay, Newfoundland. Focusing on a particular moment of ethno-religious tension, a ritual staking of claim in the 1880s, it demonstrates that ethnicity was re-imagined th...
| Published in: | Canadian Historical Review |
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| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
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University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress)
2009
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| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/chr.90.1.29 https://utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/chr.90.1.29 |
| Summary: | This article explores the negotiation of ethnicity between English Protestants and Irish Catholics in nineteenth-century Conception Bay, Newfoundland. Focusing on a particular moment of ethno-religious tension, a ritual staking of claim in the 1880s, it demonstrates that ethnicity was re-imagined through processes that drew selectively from Old World narratives, yet was very much shaped by local circumstances. The essay argues that ethnicity was not always driven by elites, but that popular classes also invoked ethnic difference for their own self-interests – in this case, as they jostled for position during economic decline. It also examines the gendered nature of participation in the affray, particularly the contrast between the institutional, predominantly male involvement of popular-class English Protestants and the communal, gender-inclusive response of popular-class Irish Catholics – a difference that reflected dissimilar positioning of women in family economies and divergent ethnic understandings of respectable womanhood. |
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