Orientalism at home: the case of 'Canada's toughest neighbourhood'

Abstract

This article examines representations of Jane-Finch, a community in north-west Toronto deemed 'Canada's toughest neighbourhood' by The Globe and Mail in 2007. By exploring how the dominant news media negotiate a sense of Canadian identity in contradistinction to this marginalised space, the article highlights the insights that Edward Said's Orientalism (1978) creates when translated into a Canadian context. I argue that by applying Said's conceptual framework to Canadian communities such as Jane-Finch, scholars stand to learn much about the myth of what it means to be Canadian and how the mainstream news media reproduce this (self-) knowledge.