1. Money and Colonialism in Canada: An Interview with Brian Gettler
- Author:
- Brian Gettler and Martin Crevier
- Publication Date:
- 06-2021
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- The Toynbee Prize Foundation
- Abstract:
- On 30 April 2013, live from the International Space Station, the Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield unveiled a new $5 banknote. It featured some of Canada’s contribution to space exploration. Here the country is imagined as a modern state, willing to contribute to multilateral scientific endeavours for the common good of humankind. Earth and the Great Lakes appear in the background, rendered from photographs supplied by the Department of Natural Resources. Having developed its own landmass, the image seems to imply, Canada now projects its knowhow to the confines of space. The twinned themes of internationalism and development are reinforced on the other side of the note. There features Wilfrid Laurier, a prime minister remembered for furthering an independent Canadian foreign policy within the British Empire and as an advocate of state-led Western settlement. If unlikely, Laurier and space exploration appear in the end an effective association for a banknote part of the “Frontier Series.” Money, we might glean from this anecdote, is far from a commonplace and benign object. It carries political significance and power even beyond the symbols emblazoned upon notes and coins. Yet money and currencies seldom emerge as a focal point in histories of colonialism and empire; normally they are an accessory to express value, a tool of exchange, or a medium of early encounters. In Colonialism’s Currency: Money, State, and First Nations in Canada, 1820–1950, Brian Gettler sets out to correct this narrative. He shows how money, in its materiality and from the practices surrounding it, can be conceived of as a political force that reshapes space, mediates the colonial project, extends sovereignty, and modulates behaviours. It is for him, more precisely, a technology that allows us to trace the emergence of the colonial state in what becomes Canada, as well as its complex and changing relationships with Indigenous peoples. Brian Gettler is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto. He has just published Colonialism’s Currency with McGill-Queen’s University Press. In our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed his new book, his historical interests, and how the history of currency in British North America can inform larger conversations about empire and colonialism.
- Topic:
- History, Colonialism, Empire, Money, Currency, Indigenous, and First Nations
- Political Geography:
- Canada and North America