Breaking the Shackles of the Metropolitan Thesis: Prairie History, the Environment and Layered Identities

Abstract

The prairie identity expressed in historical writings bears little resemblance to that created by prairie writers, painters and song writers. Prairie historians, working within the conceptual framework of the Metropolitan thesis or Limited Identities, suggest that if a prairie identity exists, it is found in regional, political and economic protests against the external metropolis and the capitalist system. The emphasis on these constructs in the “new western history” in the United States indicates the strength of this early Canadian historical scholarship, but the paradigm is not entirely useful for understanding identity. Prairie historians have not used either the Annaliste paradigm or the new literature on constructed identities in the formulation of their work. This review of writings in Canadian prairie history and western American history suggests that a new synthesis of prairie history that searches for identity within a new. framework is needed. Prairie historians must begin their work with an understanding of the relationships between people and the environment on the prairies. These environmental relationships provide the continuity upon which a new understanding of prairie identity can be constructed. This identity must be understood as an autonomous layer of consciousness rather than a “limited identity” within a national consciousness.