Wilderness and tolerance in Flora MacDonald Denison: towards a biopolitics of whiteness

Baldwin, W.A.

Abstract

Building on recent argumentation concerning the relationship between wilderness and multiculturalism and whiteness in Canada, this essay argues that the relationship between wilderness and tolerance, one of multiculturalism's operative terms, offers a potentially rich vein for researching and theorizing liberal biopolitics and whiteness in Canada. To formulate this argument the essay historicizes the pairing of tolerance and wilderness in Edwardian Canada through the figure of Flora MacDonald Denison, an important early twentieth-century Canadian feminist and labour activist, a wilderness enthusiast, Theosophist/spiritualist and Walt Whitman devotee.

Citation

Baldwin, W. (2010). Wilderness and tolerance in Flora MacDonald Denison: towards a biopolitics of whiteness. Social and Cultural Geography, 11(8), 883-901. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2010.523842

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Dec 1, 2010
• Deposit Date: Aug 31, 2010
• Journal: Social and Cultural Geography
• Print ISSN: 1464-9365
• Electronic ISSN: 1470-1197
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 8
• Pages: 883-901
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2010.523842
• Keywords: Wilderness, Tolerance, Flora MacDonald Denison, Liberal biopolitics.