Imposed Identities

--Description taken from "Imposed Identities:The Colonial Construction of Indigenous Masculinity"-- This thesis examines how images of Metis and First Nations men have been constructed and circulated by media discourse in Canada. I begin by examining the social, political and economic structures of the French Metis and show how their lifestyle as middlemen was greatly altered by governmental policies. I then explore the inception of stereotypical images of First Nations and Metis men. Beginning with Paul Kane, I argue that these image makers failed to accurately distinguish between differing Indigenous groups and began a tradition wherein inaccurate depictions of Indigenous men were the norm. Next, I engage such depictions in early North American popular culture and argue that, in this medium, these images carried an ideological perspective rooted in a colonial bias regarding what constituted civilized and savage. Finally, I examine my grandfather's unpublished novel as a case study in how formative these stereotypes can be and introduce the notion of Shame Discourse to articulate how the pressures of Indigenous masculinity force some Indigenous men into a state of cultural compromise. Throughout, I use the term Indigenous masculinity as a way to articulate this cluster of stereotypes and acknowledge the common experiences of disparate Indigenous groups.