ABSTRACT
In Canada, as elsewhere today, problems regarding the representation of otherness figure with a tenacity that has put considerable pressure on all those involved in practices affecting the cultural and political economy of the country. Be it the aboriginal peoples’ right to selfgovernment, or Quebec as a ‘distinct society’, or race, gender and ethnicity as perceived by the Canada Council, the Secretary of State, and other state and cultural agencies, otherness as a synonym for ethnic and/or racial minoritisation is riddled with the desire, indeed the imperative, to be described and re-constructed. It is certainly not accidental that at a time when we are warned daily against the dangers of cultural appropriation, we are also made witnesses to a slowly emerging new polity of the space we have come to know as Canada.
