Red Mitten Nationalism: Sport, Commercialism, and Settler Colonialism in Canada

by Estée Fresco

When Canada hosted the 1976 Montreal Olympics, few Canadian spectators waved flags in the stands. By 2010, in the run-up to the Vancouver Olympics, thousands of Canadians wore red mittens with white maple leaves on the palms. In doing so, they turned their hands into miniature flags that flew with even a casual wave.Red Mitten Nationalism investigates this shift in Canadians’ displays of patriotism by exploring how common understandings of Canadian history and identity are shaped at the intersection of sport, commercialism, and nationalism. Through case studies of recent Canadian-hosted Olympic and Commonwealth Games, Estée Fresco argues that representations of Indigenous Peoples’ cultures are central to the way everyday Canadians, corporations, and sport organizations remember the past and understand the present. Corporate sponsors and games organizers highlight selective ideas about the nation’s identity, and unacknowledged truths about the history and persistence of Settler colonialism in Canada haunt the commercial and cultural features of these sporting events. Commodities that represent the nation – from disposable trinkets to carefully curated objects of nostalgia – are not uncomplicated symbols of national pride, but rather reminders that Canada is built on Indigenous land and Settlers profit from its natural resources. Red Mitten Nationalism challenges readers to re-evaluate how Canadians use sport and commercial practices to express their patriotism and to understand the impact of this expression on the current state of Indigenous-Settler relations.

Genres: Canada

256 pages, Paperback

Published December 15, 2022

Reviews

[Dasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fresco writes a short and concise analysis of Canada's major sporting events and how the commercialized symbolism deployed by organizers reflect, hide, and try to reinforce Canada's settler colonial identity. While some of the conclusions feel a bit black and white, I think its a strong analysis of continuity and change. It reminds me a bit of Gary Miedema's For Canada's Sake in which he analyzes religious symbolism at the 1967 centenary celebrations.

[Vanessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author looks at the ways Indigenous imagery and culture were co-opted, misrepresented, and profited off of through the creation of national myths and commodities intended to represent very specific versions of the nation (i.e. one with "no history of colonialism").

there was overlap across chapters, but each case study also highlighted a different subject (e.g. the complex and contested ways of defining authenticity, particularly in response to settler co-optation, corporate sponsorship as a way to sanitize their active participation in extractive practices threatening the cultural and physical survival of Indigenous peoples)

By the time she gets to the 2010 games in Vancouver, things have "improved" since the Montréal Olympics, and the Four Host First Nations were meaningfully involved in the decision-making process in ways that were unprecedented. yet she never lays off the gas: the Olympics were being hosted on unceded and non-surrendered Indigenous territories, and the settler-government and major corporations were continuing to benefit from the exploitation of Indigenous lands, insignia, and labor without meaningfully improving the conditions of Indigenous peoples.

throughout, she discusses commodities as patriotism (be they mittens or mascots, commemorative coins or stamps - brand identity fused with national identity), how that fusion of nationalism and commercialism represents and obscures Canada's identity as a settler colonial state, and how that lends itself to broader discussions about the ways consumerism is framed as an act of support and identity.

[Chrissy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant!

[Jacob Blenkinsop · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although this book covers a compelling topic and is by no doubt informative and thought provoking, I found parts of it to be rather repetitive causing it to be an incredibly dry read.