When Canadians come back across the border, they have to prove that they belong — they convince border guards to accept them back into the country. This includes citizens whose normative identities (such as White Anglophones) might not require them to reflect on their relationship to national identity in the same way that other groups such as racialized or visible minority Canadians often have to. Taking your national identity for granted in these circumstances is a kind of privilege.
If you have crossed the Canada-US land border in the last 2 years and identify with the study audience, your experience can help inform this research.
Why your support is crucial
How do Canadians 'act Canadian' when they cross the Canada-US border? How do they deal with Canadian security forces like the CBSA as they return to Canada? How does the media influence these actions? This project tries to find answers to these questions.
Canadians learn how to 'act Canadian' at the border from many different sources, including media and social connections. Because different groups of Canadians might 'act Canadian' in different ways, and have different experiences with the border, this project is looking at specific groups. This part is focused on people who think of themselves as white, English-speaking Canadians. This identity is sometimes considered a 'default' Canadian identity, and the experiences of other groups of Canadians sometimes get compared to it. Learning about it can help us understand and compare the breadth of Canadian experiences.
Canadians with different cultural or ethnic backgrounds might act differently, feel differently, or be treated differently to each other in border crossing situations, so it's important to be able to compare how different groups talk about their own experiences at the border, and their ideas of how they 'act Canadian.' Doing this can help us understand and compare how Canadians understand Canadian identity, and how they act when they cross the border.
How the research works
The project uses a combination of anonymous surveys, interviews, and media analysis to examine how the performance of national identity by White Anglo Canadian citizens is acted out and related to media representations of national identity at border crossings.
Future findings
Research findings, summaries, and updates can be shared here in a later phase.
