Terminologies of Control: Tracing the Canadian-South African Connection in a Word

Abstract

How did ‘multicultural’ Canada come to be associated with, and blamed for, the harsh Bantustans in South Africa's apartheid regime? How did the word ‘apartheid’ travel back and forth between the ‘Dominion’ and the ‘Union’? Did the word actually make this voyage? By taking Foucault's notion of genealogical method and applying it to a word (instead of an apparatus such as an asylum), I conducted a conceptual inquiry into the specific historically verifiable sources of ‘apartheid’ and its synchronic linguistic study. To conduct an etymon genealogy, I investigated Internet archives for key combinations of words as well as databases, library holdings, newspapers and government records. The majority of sources characterise Canadian apartheid in the Canadian Reserve System as a root of South Africa's Bantustans. The volume of references is great enough to warrant identifying this association as a trend.

Notes

Theoretical, Cultural and International Studies in Education, Educational Policy Studies Department, University of Alberta, 11009 90th Ave, Edmonton AB T6G 1A6. Email: [email protected]