Ethical Gestures: Articulations of Black Life in Montreal's 1960s

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
Ethical Gestures: Articulations of Black Life in Montreal's 1960s
Abstract
The author traces articulations of Black diaspora politics and practices in Montreal in the 1960s as they revolve around two particular events that took place in the city, the Congress of Black Writers in 1968 and the Sir George Williams Affair in 1969. Her interdisciplinary project draws on a variety of oral and written sources to trace the political, social, and performative tenors of memory-work that underwrite collective and individual narratives unfolding before this historical backdrop. The author looks at the promise of democracy as a single problem-space that attracted the attention of Black activists of various stripes, the university administration and federal police. She maintains that the contested political arena in which they made their respective claims is also a moral arena in which ethical modes of being and dissenting were reproduced and countered. Using oral history interviews with six female Black Canadian and Caribbean women, she highlights the politics of moral memories. She argues that the emphasis on politics as intimately bound to everyday practices and lived experiences points to ways of reading this history that might be overlooked otherwise. Ultimately, the author maintains that her research aims not to champion any one vision of Black liberation but to offer a periscope into the ways Black narrators made and make life livable.
Type
Master's Thesis
University
Concordia University
Place
Montreal
Date
2013
# of Pages
vi-130p.
Language
en
URL
Citation
Affan, Samah. “Ethical Gestures: Articulations of Black Life in Montreal’s 1960s.” Master’s Thesis, Concordia University, 2013. http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/thesescanada/vol2/QMG/TC-QMG-977124.pdf.
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