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Abstract

Chamberlain v. Surrey School District No. 36 is a complex case within Canada's legal history. The issues at stake were wide-ranged from concerns of equality rights for same-sex parents, parental rights on the education of their children, to concerns about the best interest of children and the impacts of sensitive materials on them. Throughout the case's history, these concerns were discussed provincially and nationally within newspaper editorials, columns, and letters to the editor. The censorship issues that surround the Chamberlain case provide a site to explore how respondents actively create this case's truths and produce emotion effects in the audience through their discourse.

In this thesis I argue that the discourses of respondents speaking about the Chamberlain case produce 'truth claims' that can be aligned with social imperatives of subjectivity formation in autonomy-based liberal and neoliberal societies. These truths are generated by relying on cultural representations of children and equality rights and through the use of various narrative and rhetorical strategies.

Details

Title
Subjectivities and truths in emotion-based discourse: The case of Chamberlain v. Surrey School District No. 36
Author
Reid, Nathalie
Year
2009
Publisher
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
ISBN
978-0-494-63301-4
Source type
Dissertation or Thesis
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
578463247
Copyright
Database copyright ProQuest LLC; ProQuest does not claim copyright in the individual underlying works.