Contrasting identities / competing rhetorics : Anglophones' challenge to Québec's national project

This thesis explores the ways that Quebec's anglophones were constituted as national and political subjects by Quebec's national project and the manners in which these constitutions inform anglophone politics today. First, the policy papers tabled by the Parti Québécois and the Liberal Party of Quebec in advance of the 1980 referendum on sovereignty-association are analyzed to reveal the ideological effects these contained regarding the status of English-speaking residents of the province. Pursuant to which, the period following the 1995 referendum is analyzed. After a narrow vote for continued union with Canada, a new politics emerged from anglophones whereby they reappropriated the terms of their constitution to enact a performative contradiction which sought to challenge the Québécois nationalist discourse. Specifically, this thesis argues that the subject positions attributed anglophones by the national project are dualistic and dissimilar, prompting two distinct rhetorical claims in one public sphere. Conclusions are drawn with respect to the success of anglophones' reappropriations, and suggestions are formulated as to the ways in which anglophones might better optimize their performative contradiction in the future