• DOI:10.3828/BJCS.2014.5
• Corpus ID: 143588760

Orientalism at home: the case of 'Canada's toughest neighbourhood'

@article{Richardson2014OrientalismAH,
  title={Orientalism at home: the case of 'Canada's toughest neighbourhood'},
  author={Chris Richardson},
  journal={British Journal of Canadian Studies},
  year={2014},
  volume={27},
  pages={75 - 95}
}

• C. Richardson
• Published 20 March 2014
• Political Science
• British Journal of Canadian Studies

This article examines representations of Jane-Finch, a community in north-west Toronto deemed 'Canada's toughest neighbourhood' by The Globe and Mail in 2007. By exploring how the dominant news media negotiate a sense of Canadian identity in contradistinction to this marginalised space, the article highlights the insights that Edward Said's Orientalism (1978) creates when translated into a Canadian context. I argue that by applying Said's conceptual framework to Canadian communities such as Jane-Finch, scholars stand to learn much about the myth of what it means to be Canadian and how the mainstream news media reproduce this (self-) knowledge.