Search Results

Paul-André Crépeau was a true academic. His extensive publications reveal his drive to enrich the law, often by drawing on French law, which he admired. He was a man of conviction who was committed to the autonomy of Quebec law. A descendant of the nationalist school, this was where he showed his romantic side. At times polemic, he did not hesitate to criticize legislature, government, judges or authors if he believed they were in error. He made it his mission to be the guardian of orthodoxy. His independent mind led him sometimes to oppose certain initiatives undertaken by his own faculty. Crépeau was an intellectual leader ; he worked ceaselessly to shape the development of Quebec law and pressed for acceptance of many interpretations, rules and concepts, such as the concept of the intensity of obligations. He was a true academic entrepreneur who was eager to serve society and the legal world. He masterfully led the Civil Code reform and established a research centre at McGill that now bears his name, where he founded a collection of civil law treatises and dictionaries. In addition, he became an active participant in several international organisations, such as Unidroit and the International Academy of Comparative Law.

This qualitative study constitutes the empirical component of a project on the informational behaviour of members of the Union des écrivaines et des écrivains québécois (UNEQ), a writers' union located in Montreal, Quebec. Using a theoretical framework inspired by Pierre Bourdieu's work in the literary field, also found in literature on the topic, the study describes the practices of writers in terms of their needs, research, use and dissemination of information by bringing together data gathered via a survey, an analysis of online contents, and interviews. The results show that the advantages and disadvantages of digital media sometimes create a sense of incoherence among the resources used and the online dissemination of information. Furthermore, it suggests that the relationship with information professionals could be reconfigured at the creation of the text stage, with regards to the organisation of the digital paratext, and in order for the online tools available to writers to be understood. That being said, this relationship would need to be part of a larger change in the field, since the current perceptions of legitimation continue to follow the traditional paths of the illusio.

The historiography of the “Pays d'en haut”, as a specific historical object, may seem relatively stammering. The term “Pays d'en haut” may have been perceived as too soft or too vague, geographically and conceptually, and historians may have preferred to invest the history of Ontario, Michigan, or Manitoba by using other geographic categories (New France, Canada, Great Lakes, Prairies), or more clearly analytical grids (frontier, hinterland, periphery). However, the expression deserves to be valued insofar as it served as a long-term mental and geographical framework. As such, it constitutes an object of research in itself, which can encourage a renewed study of the historical processes at work in the spaces concerned, from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. This definition of the “Pays d'en haut” as an object of history is certainly not self-evident: it implies, first of all, a reflection on the object “Pays d'en haut” in history, on how this framework has been built historically through the practices, representations and imaginations of social actors. In order to fully legitimize this approach, we need also to analyze how historiography has, in turn, ignored, neglected, or, on the contrary, emphasized this expression as the space it designates.

This article examines issues of power related to the Congrès mondial acadien (CMA or World Acadian Congress), a large gathering that has been held every five years since 1994. The objective of the study is to examine the dynamics of empowerment within the Acadian community, while taking into account the diasporic aspect of the Acadian identity and experience. To this end, we first propose a theoretical reflection on the concept of empowerment. It is through this lens that we then study discourses surrounding a public consultation conducted in 2015 at the behest of the Société Nationale de l'Acadie. We conclude that there exists a contradiction between the desire to include groups from the diaspora in initiatives intended to strengthen the empowerment of the Acadian community in the Maritimes, on the one hand, and the low level of participation by those same groups in the consultation on the future of the CMA, on the other.

Keywords: Acadie, diaspora, Congrès mondial acadien, habilitation, francophonie canadienne, Acadie/Acadia, diaspora, Congrès mondial acadien (World Acadian Congress, CMA), empowerment, Canadian Francophonie

This portrait follows the footsteps of ethnohistorian Michel Lessard, from the time of his childhood and youth, when he discovered the wonders of traditional material culture (1942-1968). We then consider the vastness of his intellectual activities, as he produced a pioneer set of encyclopedic works (1968-2007), besides editing collections of old photographs (1986-2013). This overview constitutes a broad survey of the many ways in which Lessard interpreted the most important and meaningful aspects of Québec history through his journey of discovery, as he uncovered traces of traditional material culture everywhere.