Narrating Multiculturalism: Understanding Nationalism through the Canadian Museum for Human Rights

Abstract

This paper explores the narrative of the Canadian nation as articulated in the discourses in and around the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. I focus on two of the controversies surrounding the CMHR: first, the museum’s recommendation to have a permanent exhibit on the Holocaust and, second, the museum’s occupation of Indigenous land. I argue that national narratives help to produce a specific sort of memorialization, while, at the same time, national narratives are produced through specific forms of memorialization—the two processes are mutually interdependent.