If there is a common theme that has run throughout my
career as an anthropologist, it is an interest in the cultural
reproduction of ethnic and national identities. This is the
conceptual concern around which my research with Croatians,
Mennonites and Hmong refugees in Canada has been organized.
I have always been fascinated, in both a personal and a professional
sense, with the exponential increase in identity claims and
their often violent manifestations.
My research with Croatians began in 1992, and has consisted
of several phases of fieldwork that began during a very tumultuous
time for Croatians in Toronto. While walking through the
Student Centre on campus in 1992, I noticed a large group
of students gathered around one of the student club information
tables. The commotion that ensued began with an altercation
between students from the different former-Yugoslav republics
over the war. At one point, campus security was called in
and order was restored, for the moment. The passion and commitment
for a war thousands of kilometres away for many of these
mostly Canadian-born students piqued my interest. What was
it that inspired such devotion, not to mention occasional
displays of contempt for each other? Isn't being Canadian
enough? Looking at these issues from the perspective of diaspora
and transnationalism became central to my thinking about
these questions.
Since then, I have been investigating the influence of
diasporas on nation-building projects, but also the involvement
of homelands in construing a national imaginary for diasporas.
In the context of a series of field trips to Croatia beginning
in 1997, I have spent considerable time investigating these
issues and other interests among Croatian diaspora "returnees" to
the homeland. My publications, projects and research reflect
a curiosity with the shifting and often confounding nature
of identity construction. I have recently begun to expand
these interests to include other former-Yugoslav republics
such as Serbia, and to explore the fascination with, and
embracing of, ideas and practices associated with civil society
and citizenship.
I am currently working on several large projects, the first
of which deals with the issue of social cohesion in Canada
in the context of the transnational links that Canadian citizens
have with their ancestral homeland; and the second of which
examines the desire to return to the homeland for Croatians
in diaspora. What I have learned over the years from people
in these contexts who are "living politics" on
a daily basis has had a major impact on how I interrogate
the relationships between politics, identity, desire, memory
and, most important, issues of being and belonging.
Educational Background
| 1990 |
PhD (Sociology), York University. |
| 1983 |
MA (Social Anthropology), York University. |
| 1981 |
BA (Anthropology), York University. |
Research Interests
Professor
Winland's current project investigates contemporary Croatian
struggles to reinvent themselves in the changing political,
social and cultural landscape of post-communist Eastern Europe
. This research reflects broadly focused interests in nationalism,
diaspora and the cultural politics of representation / recognition,
transnationalism, memory and discourse analysis. Her current
work focuses on the impact of Croatian independence from the
former Yugoslavia on Croatian discourses of national belonging.
Her interests also include ethnographic research methodology,
space and place, ethnicity, multiculturalism and cultural
theory. Her earlier work on Mennonite ethnicity, and religious
conversion and gender among Laotian Hmong refugees has also
been published.
The Politics
of Desire and Disdain: Croatians Between "Home" and "Homeland". This forthcoming book focuses on the impact of Croatian war
and independence on the diaspora in Canada and on diaspora-homeland
relations.
Homeward Bound:
Croatian Canadians and Homeland Return. I am currently
working on a SSHRC-funded project focusing on the motivations
of diaspora Croats to return "home" to Croatia.
Social Cohesion
and International Migration in a Globalizing Era. This
collaborative multi-disciplinary project involves researchers
from across Canada and focuses on a wide variety of refugee
groups and diaspora communities in Canada. We are investigating
the impact of transnational links with homelands on social
cohesion and conceptions of citizenship in Canada.
Current Teaching Assignments
Undergraduate
AN3100 6.0 Acquiring Research Skills
AN3400 6.0 Altering
States: Civil Society and Citizenship in a Globalizing World
Graduate
AN6020.03 Advanced Research Methods in Anthropology
Recent Publications
| forthcoming |
Croatian Diaspora. In The Encyclopaedia
of Diasporas. Human Relations Area Files. New Haven:
Kluwer/Plenum Press. |
| forthcoming |
Raising the Curtain: Transnationalism
in the Post-Communist World. In V. Satzewich & L.
Wong (eds.), Transnational Communities in Canada:
Emergent Identities, Practices and Issues. Vancouver:
University of British Columbia Press. |
| forthcoming |
Nation-Building, Nation-Bonding: Croatian Diaspora
and the Homeland. In H. Riegler (ed.), The Politics
of Exile: The Role of Diasporas in Nation-Building. Austrian
Institute of International Affairs. |
| 2002 |
The Politics of Desire and Disdain: Croatian Identity
Between "Home" and "Homeland". American
Ethnologist 29 (3): 693-718. |
| 2000 |
Vision Impaired: The Cultural Politics of Everyday
Life in Croatia. Anthropology of East Europe Review
18 (2): 31-37. |
| 1998 |
‘Our Home and Native Land?' Canadian Ethnic
Scholarship and the Challenge of Transnationalism. Canadian
Review of Sociology and Anthropology 35 (4): 521-543. |
| 1995 |
‘We Are Now an Actual Nation': The Impact
of National Independence on the Croatian Diaspora in
Canada. Diaspora 4 (1): 3-30. |
| 1994 |
Conversion and Community: Hmong Refugee Women
and Christianity. Canadian Journal of Sociology 19 (1):
21-45. |
| 1993 |
The Quest for Mennonite Peoplehood: Ethno-Religious
Identity and the Dilemma of Definitions. Canadian
Review of Sociology and Anthropology 30 (1): 110-138. |
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