The symbolic empire and the history of racial inequality

Abstract

Historiography is routinely employed to support contemporary accounts of racial inequality. Subjecting Khan's (1991) exploration of the history of East Indians¹ in Canada (1903–47) to critical analysis this article argues that ‘empire’ is used as a narrative and symbolic device. But the symbolic empire is a constrained analytic tool which can only produce a circumscribed account of race and a limited form of race politics. By substituting the symbolic empire with an empire invoked as an administrative device, registered in political discourses, the symbolic empire becomes two nationhoods‐in‐process. These two very different nation‐building processes, one Indian the other Canadian, are connected. The Canadian nation was constructed as a white enterprise in a defensive action against the immigration of East Indians who were concurrently awarded a second‐class citizenship by Britain. This article shows how the Canadian discourse on alien immigrants was a device used to affirm its own (white) identity. It shows how the historical themes of exclusion and marginalization may be mobilized to develop a form of race politics in the present.

Keywords:

• History
• empire
• nation‐building
• racial inequality