- Normative Narratives: Being Canadian
Reading all of my peer’s blogs and their own stories about being Canadian made me realize that so many people have similar ideas about being Canadian, but a lot of people have different opinions about what being Canadian means to them. Most people wrote about hockey, how friendly and welcoming Canadians are, our wicked cold winters, Tim Horton’s, the Canadian flag and our maple syrup. Which when I get asked what it means to be Canadian and what Canadian Identity is, I think of all those things. All of those things are known as normative narratives.
In my blog, I talked about what makes me most Canadian and I explained how I am from a small town and I grew up playing hockey. Our small town got a Tim Horton’s and I also believe that Tim’s is part of our Canadian identity. The two blog posts that stuck out the most to me was Olivia’s blog and also Karlee’s blog. We all talked about hockey and how it is a part of our Canadian identity. All three of us grew up in small towns in Saskatchewan and hockey was a part of us growing up. As children, we all remember most of our time spent in the hockey rink, watching our friends, and family play their most important games. For me, that is where a lot of my childhood memories comes from, either watching hockey from the stands or cheering them on or on the ice playing with my own team. Hockey is one of the biggest normative narratives in Canadian identity.
In Olivia’s blog, Karlee’s blog and my own blog, we also all explained how Canada is so friendly and welcoming to everyone and how we were always around people. When I think of Canada, I also think of it as friendly. For all of us, it was so easy to get together with people, as living in a small town, you see the same people everywhere. Most likely you will see everyone at the hockey rink, and everyone always has a smile and talks to you. Another Canadian normative narrative is being friendly and welcoming new people with open arms.
2) Disrupting Normative Narratives
In my blog, Karlee’s blog and Olivia’s blog post about being Canadian, we all talked about all of us girls either playing hockey or watching hockey when we were growing up. Karlee mentioned how she did not play hockey, because there was not enough interest in girls playing and she wasn’t interested in playing with the boys while growing up. The biggest disrupting normative narrative that I noticed between our blogs is gender roles and stereotypes. Lots of people assume ‘hockey is for boys’ and are really shocked when they find out that girls played on a boy’s hockey team growing up. Lots of people just assume that girls do dance or figure skating and they think that boys don’t do those sports. Because of the gender norms, girls are more likely to go into dance and gymnastics and boys are more likely to go in football and hockey. Even though hockey is a huge part of Canadian identity, you are still Canadian just because you did not play it. If you are Canadian, then you most likely grew up at the cold hockey rink no matter if you played or not.
Another normative narrative I noticed in a few of the blogs I read about being Canadian, is that Canadians are known as being really friendly, welcoming and polite. And I do agree with that, as being a Canadian, we are really friendly and polite. But something that disrupts this normative narrative is that Canadians still do bully people, are mean to people they do not like, and also Canadians do still commit crimes and get into trouble with the police.