The contributions to this special issue exemplify the cultural turn of the study of
nationalism. Although a concern with the narrative construction of national identity
runs through the articles in this volume, it is tempered by the authors’ inclination to
explore the middle ground of social and cultural practices. By asking how Canadians
“internalized” notions of national identity, how they incorporated them in their
everyday lives and material worlds, and how they constructed a sense of Canadian-
ness in inter-cultural encounters, the authors bring to the fore a Canadian
nationalism that revealed itself not in the grand national ideal, but in more tangible
practices, encounters, and stories.
