Seeing Ourselves

Seeing Ourselves examines the meanings of ethnicity, race, and culture, exploring how these concepts are understood by individuals and embedded within Canadian society. Offering a distinctly Canadian perspective on debates that resonate globally, the book interrogates the realities behind Canada’s self-definition as a multicultural society.

Now in its fifth edition, Seeing Ourselves has been updated to address major social and political developments since its first publication in 1989, including the rapid growth of immigration, particularly from Asia; the increasing prominence of reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples; the Black Lives Matter movement; Quebec’s secularism legislation; the Trump-era backlash in the United States and its reverberations in Canada; and the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, the book retains the core explanatory frameworks, theoretical discussions, student essays, excerpts, and references to media reports that have long distinguished it as a foundational text in the study of race and ethnicity in Canada.