LE3 .A278 2010

2010

Sacouman, Jim

Acadia University

Master of Arts

Masters

Sociology

Sociology

This thesis examines English- Canadian newspaper depictions of a police raid of the Haudenosaunee Reclamation Movement that was successfully thwarted by the latter. The movement is comprised of members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy of the Grand River seeking to reclaim Kanonhstaton, a tract of land among many in southern Ontario that has been unlawfully dispossessed from the Confederacy. Although the movement is a political one, English- Canadian newspapers depicted it as criminal in nature thereby justifying the failed raid. It can be shown that said newspapers constructed a criminalized portrait of the movement through the use of repetition of similar words with negative connotations so as to create emphasis, or a preferred reading of the movement as criminals, while strategically silencing the important context of the movement‘ s motivation for action. Arguing that these preferred readings and strategic silences are ideological attempts to justify acts of coercive violence by the Canadian state, this work suggests that left unchecked and unchallenged they will only serve to strengthen the system of colonialism in Canada.

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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:161