Le cochon, a washed up mermaid, and soldier’s bread: three generations of Acadian women at the intersection of museums and fiction

Abstract

In this autoethnographic narrative article, I apply a feminist antimilitarist lens to discuss how the critical learning that museums can facilitate can provide a powerful pedagogic lens into the past and present, particularly when connected to self. These sites can illuminate the strength of women as they encounter/ed individual and societal challenges. I explore how the genre of fiction, as an arts-based practice of knowledge creation, can be connected to the work of museums to bring feminist research into the everyday lives of Canadians. I demonstrate how engaging with museums and fiction can encourage critical thought.

Keywords:

• Museums
• gender
• public pedagogy
• fiction
• feminist antimilitarism
• autoethnograpy
• interactive meaning-making
• family

Notes

1. This is a small island on the east coast of Canada. It is one of the Maritime provinces. It has a land area of 5656 square kilometers and now has a population of 147, 390.

2. The Acadians were descendants of French settlers in Acadia, which is now New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and parts of Quebec, Canada as well as Maine, USA. They were expelled by the English from 1755 to 1764. Many were transported to France and Britain. Some hid from the English, others later returned, to Canada, and some migrated to places such as Louisiana, USA, and the Caribbean.

3. Archives are not traditionally grouped with heritage sites and museums, perhaps because they are not curated in a similar manner and are not typically accessed by the general public. However, they do tell specific stories of history, depending on which records are kept, donated to, and accepted by archives, and which are not. Also, the ways in which the archival content is organised and described can effect which records are called up and which remain covered in dust.

4. I have edited the passages as necessary so they read as stand-alone excerpts.

5. I often listen to this CD when working on the novel.