Asset Details
Do you wish to reserve the book?
The Workingmen's Protective Association, Victoria, B.C., 1878: Racism, Intersectionality and Status Politics
Hey, we have placed the reservation for you!
By the way, why not check out events that you can attend while you pick your title.
Oops! Something went wrong.
Looks like we were not able to place the reservation. Kindly try again later.
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
The Workingmen's Protective Association, Victoria, B.C., 1878: Racism, Intersectionality and Status Politics
Do you wish to request the book?
The Workingmen's Protective Association, Victoria, B.C., 1878: Racism, Intersectionality and Status Politics
Please be aware that the book you have requested cannot be checked out. If you would like to checkout this book, you can reserve another copy
We have requested the book for you!
Your request is successful and it will be processed during the Library working hours. Please check the status of your request in My Requests.
Oops! Something went wrong.
Looks like we were not able to place your request. Kindly try again later.
Journal Article
The Workingmen's Protective Association, Victoria, B.C., 1878: Racism, Intersectionality and Status Politics
1999
Overview
The WPA has been variously described as an anti-Chinese organization, a form of anti-Orientalism, the first labour union in the province, and a political pressure group.(f.4) Each of these observations describes a particular feature of the Association. However, existing analyses of the WPA by prominent historians of British Columbia have neglected the significance of gendered racism and the influence of capitalist social relations at both the local and international levels, as well as incipient nationalist sentiments and the inferior political status of the Chinese. The two major examples are [Patricia E. Roy], who described the WPA as \"essentially\" a political pressure group with minor interests in encouraging employment of white men, and [W. Peter Ward] who, despite acknowledging its \"professed concern for working-class conditions in general,\" concluded that the WPA was \"essentially a vehicle for anti-Chinese agitation\".(f.5) Ward was correct to suggest that the racism found in the WPA was part of a broader anti-Asian process which marginalized the Chinese as outsiders and was underway before the WPA emerged.(f.69) That process included sporadic racist outbursts against Chinese gold miners and coal miners, as well as anti-Chinese organizations. Ward also claimed that the significance of early anti-Chinese organizations like the WPA lay in their constant rebirth which he attributed to British Columbia's obsession with \"race.\" However, the above discussion leads to the conclusion that efforts to explain the existence of the WPA in terms of the dominance of one type of inequality, such as racial discrimination, are suspect. Analysis of the Association in intersectional terms problematizes notions of singular identity: neither the Chinese nor the Euro-Canadians in the WPA were simply members of different \"races.\" For example, the former were subject to mutually reinforcing relations of subordination, while the latter acted primarily on what [Anthias] would call their contradictory location as members of a subordinate class who saw themselves as more worthy workers than the Chinese \"Other.\"(f.70) These types of intersection between class and status in the WPA occurred at a particular historical conjuncture, a formative period in the development of British Columbian society. Reserve lands were being assigned as a means of dealing with the presence and demands of Aboriginal peoples.(f.76) The economy was undergoing a transition from mercantile capitalism and independent commodity production, as found respectively in the activities of the Hudson's Bay Company and in gold mining, to industrial capitalism, represented by coal mining, shipbuilding, and small manufacturing. During this social and economic transformation new patterns of social and economic organization were emerging. Faced with economic and ideological uncertainty, members of the WPA used racism as a resource by mobilizing against a readily available \"Other\" that was easily targeted.(f.77) Former gold miners who found it necessary to pursue opportunities for wage labour joined other workers who became unemployed due to the depression of the 1870s.(f.78) Both groups were compelled by the emerging industrial capitalist order to sell their labour power in order to obtain a livelihood for themselves and their families. They were desperate for employment in a year of economic recession. Of 30 miners listed in the Victoria City Directory for 1878, several were speakers at WPA meetings or members of the Association's executive. Those adherents of the WPA who lost gainful employment or who were having to shift from being independent commodity producers to doing waged labour were coping with the experience of downward social mobility, a process found to be a major factor behind outbursts of xenophobia and racism.(f.79)
