Lived Reality in the Empty Spaces of Capital: Some Lessons from Video in Northern Canada

Authors

  • Darrell Varga

Abstract

The image of the Canadian Arctic popularized in mass media representations is that ofvast barren tundra occupied by wild animals but otherwise sparsely populated by primitive and/or disenfranchised peoples. This image serves a useful ideological function for capital insofar as the rhetorical emptying-out of this space facilitates its deployment in the interests of Empire - interests not necessarily reflective of either the local communities or of the environment-that is, of the lived reality.

Author Biography

Darrell Varga

Darrell Varga is Canada Research Chair in Contemporary Film and Media Studies at NSCAD University, Nova Scotia, Canada. He has produced a number of documentaries, published widely on Canadian and other cinemas, and is editor of the books: Working on Screen: Representations of the Working Class in Canadian Cinema (University of Toronto Press, 2006) and the forthcoming Rain, Drizzle, Fog: Essays on Atlantic Canadian Film and Television.

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Published

2006-03-01

Issue

Section

Articles