Imagining Glace Bay: An Exploration of Family, History and Place

• Main Author: Siegel, Amy
• Other Authors: Knowles, J. Gary, Cole, Ardra, Adult Education and Counselling Psychology
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Subjects: arts-informed methodology; Glace Bay; Cape Breton; life history; unions; labour movement; critical consciousness; social justice; poetic transcription; poetry; visual inquiry; photography; narrative; 0515; Breton Island
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/30106

This is an inquiry that explores both then and now. Father and Daughter. Temporality and Geography. Within these pages stories are used to explore my family’s present and past; migration, settlement, memory, experience and connection to place – Glace Bay, a village on Cape Breton Island. Through narrative, poetry and photography, the contrasting experiences of having lived in Glace Bay in the past, and the struggle to connect with Glace Bay in the present, and future, are explored. Finally, within this manuscript I examine the impact of my father’s stories and I identify storytelling as an important factor in developing a critical consciousness. My father inspired my sense of social justice at a young age and the impetus for this project was not just to document his stories for the sake of posterity, but also to exemplify the way consciousness is cultivated and passed down; across generations, despite changing landscapes, through story. MAST