Village Among Nations: "Canadian" Mennonites in a Transnational World, 1916-2006
© 2013
Between the 1920s and the 1940s, 10,000 traditionalist Mennonites emigrated from western Canada to isolated rural sections of Northern Mexico and the Paraguayan Chaco; over the course of the twentieth century, they became increasingly scattered through secondary migrations to East Paraguay, British Honduras, Bolivia, and elsewhere in Latin America. Despite this dispersion, these Canadian-descendant Mennonites, who now number around 250,000, developed a rich transnational culture over the years, resisting allegiance to any one nation and cultivating a strong sense of common peoplehood based on a history of migration, nonviolence, and distinct language and dress.
Village among Nations recuperates a missing chapter of Canadian history: the story of these Mennonites who emigrated from Canada for cultural reasons, but then in later generations “returned” in large numbers for economic and social security. Royden Loewen analyzes a wide variety of texts, by men and women – letters, memoirs, reflections on family debates on land settlement, exchanges with curious outsiders, and deliberations on issues of citizenship. They relate the untold experience of this uniquely transnational, ethno-religious community.
Product Details
- World Rights
- Page Count: 340 pages
- Illustrations: 20
- Dimensions: 6.1in x 0.8in x 9.1in
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Reviews
‘Loewen has created a sources that transcends the academy and is accessible for a broad audience….The book’s most significant contribution is that it creates a scholarly map identifying the terrain for future studies. As such, this is a path breaking work.’
Patricia Harms
Journal of Mennonite Studies, vol 32:2014‘Village among Nations is a patiently pieced together patchwork of memoirs, letters, newspapers, diaries, and the research of graduate students; what emerges from the many pieces is a coherent and compelling whole, the most comprehensive portrait of the Low German world to date.’
Robyn Sneath
The Mennonite Quarterly Review; January 2015‘Royden Loewen’s monograph is a fantastic, insightful, and nuanced study… The book is an important contribution to migration history and is a must read for anybody interested in adding transnational perspectives to Canadian history.’
Benjamin Bryce
Canadian Historical Review vol 97:01:2016“In Village among Nations, Loewen covers a tremendous amount of geographic territory and nearly a century of time. Like an expert guide, he takes the reader through all of this with a fine mix of storytelling and historical analysis.”
Brian Froese, Department of History, Canadian Mennonite University“Royden Loewen is an engaging storyteller and a solid scholar. Village among Nations will be of interest to those curious about the experience of transnationalism among Canada’s minority groups.”
Doreen Klassen, Department of Folklore, Memorial University -
Author Information
Royden Loewen is the Chair in Mennonite Studies and a professor in the Department of History at the University of Winnipeg. He is an award-winning author of a number of books on Mennonites and immigrants in North America.
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Table of contents
Preface
Acknowlegements
Introduction
Ch 1: Leaving the ‘British Empire’ in Canada: Promises in the South, 1916-1921
Ch 2. Drawing Lines on God’s Earth: Settlers in Mexico and Paraguay, 1922-1929
Ch 3: Dreaming of ‘Old Canada’: Nostalgia in the Diaspora, 1930-1945
Ch 4: Rethinking Time and Space: East Paraguay and Beyond: 1945-1954
Ch 5: Meeting the Outside Gaze: New Life in British Honduras and Bolivia, 1954-1972
Ch 6: Crystallizing Memory: The Return of the ‘Kanadier’, 1951-1979
Ch 7: Imagining a Pan-American Village: Reading Die Mennonitische Post, 1977-1996
Ch 8: Homing in on the Transnational Village: Women Migrants in Ontario, 1985-2006
Conclusion
Bibliography
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Subjects and Courses
