"It's hard to recall those things when life is so different today:" the role of discourse, memory, and agency in uncovering experiences of southern Alberta war brides

v, 161 leaves ; 29 cmUsing the historically-specific group of Southern Alberta war brides, European women who married Canadian servicemen during the Second World War, this thesis demonstrates and contests the discursive constructions of historical knowledge. Within this context, fundamental issues of agency, discourse, memory, and experience are the focal points of this examination. This thesis provides a critical reinterpretation of these core issues to uncover what role, if any, the war brides play in the construction of their own historical images and how their identities are informed by the discursive representations of them. Using discursive representations and oral history interviews of the war brides, this thesis revisits current debates within women’s history such as the role of discursive formation, the question of experience, and the debate surrounding collective and personal memory to make conclusions about the active or passive role these women play in the writing and representation of their histories