White space : race, privilege, and cultural economies of the Okanagan Valley
(Adult Book)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"White Space analyzes the dominance of whiteness in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia to expose how this racial notion continues to sustain forms of settler privilege. The region was formed under the racialized politics of nineteenth-century Canadian federalism and in the absence of treaties with the Okanagan Nation. Its demographic remains predominantly white today, while other densely urban Canadian regions embrace diversity. Using tools such as media analysis, interviews, and autoethnography, contributors to this perceptive collection critique the cultural economics of whiteness and white supremacy. The first half documents the historical construction of whiteness: how settlers and their ancestors have sought to exalt pioneers by erasing non-whites from the region’s heritage while Indigenous peoples resist this white-out. The second half explores the persistence of whiteness as an invisible organizing principle in the neoliberal deindustrialized present. White Space moves beyond appraising whiteness as if it were a solid and unshakable category. Instead it offers a powerful demonstration of how the concept can be re-envisioned, resisted, and reshaped in a context of economic change. Researchers, students, and activists focused on issues of whiteness and locality, particularly in western Canada, will find this work indispensable. It will also interest a wider readership of those attuned to issues relating to neoliberalism, colonization, whiteness, class, gender, and privilege"--Publisher.