Vienna Working Papers in Canadian Studies Vol. 4 (2021) Canada Is… What?! A Meditation on the Diasporic Threads of Settler Colonialism

Several months prior to the presentation of this paper at the 2021 Vienna Lecture in Canadian Studies, I invited Canadian Studies students at the University of Vienna to participate in CANADA IS…WHAT?! by sharing some of their “thoughts and impressions, dreams and nightmares, images and memories, hopes, fears and random musings about this place called Canada.” I then engaged participant contributions through a performative artistic self-reflection on the intersections of family history and national memory. This paper is the product of that exploration and is framed as a conversation between me, a second-generation settler-Canadian of Dutch descent, and an audience of faculty and students at the Centre for Canadian Studies at the University of Vienna. For more information on CANADA IS WHAT?! and a glimpse of participant contributions, visit helenevosters.com/2021/02/14/canada-is-what/.