Colonialism, nationalism and the appropriation of new landscapes: Consuming Old and New Worlds in historical Quebec City (Canada)

Summary

Since the Age of Discovery, Quebec City and its broader area have seen their lot of colonists and travellers, some of which chose to establish themselves in the region. Their relationship with this, initially new, landscape was transformed through time, following wider political events and social convictions. The nature of their attitudes and perceptions to the territory impacted their foodways by calling upon particular social networks. In doing so they reflected colonialist and nationalist discourse, reproducing their inherent inequalities and their particular grip over territory. This paper is based on a reconstruction of Quebec City region’s foodways, from its exploration (1541) to its intensive industrialization (1900s), through the analysis of plant remains from five archaeological sites and critical revisiting of historical documentation. Within this framework, plant ecological preferences are used as a proxy of their geographical provenance and hence their consumption is seen as a form of territorial political and social incorporation, which can be diachronically and synchronically tracked.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Consuming Landscapes

Keywords

Spatial Coverage