One is continually aware of, and intrigued by, the ethnographic process. The subject matter under investigation, however, delves deeper into the realm of stories and storytelling as vehicles for articulating perceptions of human difference. The legend of the curse – and its many different versions – often led to discussions of curse beliefs, religion, class, race, sexuality, gender, age, history, and geography. These various strands of text are ably woven together by Robertson; in the end she suggests “ideas about human difference remain intact across generations” (p. 246). Her study invites the reader to engage in a kind of translation of the Fernitian inquest and examine our own surroundings. Though the volume looks at an old coal-mining town/now international ski destination in southern British Columbia, the study will be of interest to anthropologists, historians, and Canadianists as well as those interested in Native Studies, Women’s Studies, Cultural and Ethnic Studies.
Myka Burke, Faculty of Philology, University of Leipzig
Canadian Ethnic Studies, Vol XXXVII, No. 2, 2005
With its 25-page bibliograhy, most of Imagining Difference won’t pass for popular history, but this work has an intriguing premise and Robertson deserves credit for an original undertaking.
BC Bookworld, Vol. 19, No. 4, Winter 2005
Robertson is an ethnographer and a specialist in “urban anthropology” with a storytelling talent exceptional among the theory-riddled academics who tend to infest her field. She’s just mindful enough of the intellectual blinders that so preoccupy deconstructionist academics that she glides rather gracefully through the hash and gets to the beating heart of her chosen subject… Robinson spent three years in Fernie, visiting old Italian ladies and such, talking about curses, hanging out with the locals, taking notes. The result is brilliant.
Terry Glavin
Georgia Straight