A Social Geography of Canada

Patricia Morley is a professor of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University, an associate fellow of the Simone de Beauvoir
Institute, and author of Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Home.

This collection of essays is a festschrift in honour of James Wreford
Watson (1915–1990), an eminent Scottish-Canadian geographer who lived
in Canada for some years and pioneered new methods in social geography.
For example, he made use of Canadian literature in his academic writing
as a geographer, in order to show how Canadians perceived themselves. He
also won the Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry (1947).

Robinson is a senior lecturer in human geography at the University of
Edinburgh, where Watson established the first overseas program in
Canadian Studies. As Robinson notes in the preface, it is difficult to
avoid a lack of focus in such a set of essays. The collection is divided
into four parts, each with an introduction by the editor, one aimed at a
general and international audience. The individual essays cover
specialist topics such as “Ethnicity and Social Areas within
Winnipeg” and “Growth and Decay in the Rural Maritimes: The Example
of Pictou Island.”

The volume’s unity, such as it is, takes off from Canada’s
diversity, and from frequent references to Watson’s own work. In the
editor’s words, “it is about places and people and is broadly
concerned with where people live.” This revised edition should
interest scholars and general readers.