Papers by Godefroy Desrosiers-Lauzon
Bulletin d'histoire politique, 2018
Journal of Transnational American Studies, 2012
Godefroy Desrosiers-Lauzon investigates the phenomenon of the "snowbirds." Every year, ... more Godefroy Desrosiers-Lauzon investigates the phenomenon of the "snowbirds." Every year, tens of thousands of individuals from eastern Canada and the US Northeast, mainly older people, migrate to Florida for the winter months. Going beyond the usual sociological (and satiric) treatments, Desrosiers-Lauzon studies the development of the migratory flows in the post-1945 period and analyzes them in relation to structural issues in leisure studies, such as the roles of state-promoted tourism, economic development, and environmentalism. Rather than seeing the migrants as contributors to community, either through their presence or their economic input, Floridians have tended to build community by engaging in tourist-bashing—the outsiders being scapegoats for larger concerns over growth and environmental damage. One of the author's important contributions is in addressing the question of how we should understand this group of border-crossing migrants as constituting "Ameri...
Journal of Transnational American Studies, 2012
CHAPTER 4 FROM EDEN TO BABEL Populous, rapidly-growing Florida was more like Babel than Eden. Spe... more CHAPTER 4 FROM EDEN TO BABEL Populous, rapidly-growing Florida was more like Babel than Eden. Speedy growth has meant that transplanted migrants have been entrusted with the future of the state. Everybody in Florida is from someplace else, as the saying goes, making the Sunshine State a caricature of the American Babylon. The consequent anomie, social fragmentation, and loss of community, and the accompanying struggle to build a sense of belonging out of this congregation of unattached individuals, make Florida an interesting object for social inquiry, in a modern context where fears abound that community loss is the tradeoff for material "progress." Florida's extreme fragmentation may provide insights into our common future. Will we all be strangers, the world a hotel? Or is there hope for reconnection as we alight in one community after another before building our final nest in a snowbird haven like Florida? This chapter and the next evaluate Florida community-making through the presence of snowbirds and retired migrants. First, chapter 4 looks at snowbirds from the standpoint of the host community. How did its members react to social fragmentation? Specifically, how did they react to one of the most fragmenting aspects of life in Florida-the tourist and snowbird presence? Although Florida ranks as one of the most anomic states, the reaction of Floridians to their leisurely invaders will indicate to what extent the longing for community remains strong in late modern conditions, and will show Floridians' evolving thinking about such problems. Chapter 5 will look at the snowbird clusters, to learn how snowbirds either sought or built community, and how that can be done in a fragmented, consumerist, late modern context.
The author has granted a nonexclusive license allowing Library and Archives Canada to reproduce, ... more The author has granted a nonexclusive license allowing Library and Archives Canada to reproduce, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, communicate to the public by telecommunication or on the Internet, loan, distribute and sell theses worldwide, for commercial or noncommercial purposes, in microform, paper, electronic and/or any other formats. AVIS: L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public par telecommunication ou par Plntemet, prefer, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou autres formats.
Bulletin d'histoire politique, 2018
Minorités linguistiques et société, 2018
Bulletin d'histoire politique, 2019
Scientia Canadensis: Canadian Journal of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, 2007
Résumé La conversion métrique menée entre 1970 et 1985 par l’État fédéral fut initiée par des tec... more Résumé La conversion métrique menée entre 1970 et 1985 par l’État fédéral fut initiée par des technologues convaincus de la supériorité du nouveau système, par des spécialistes de l’enseignement primaire et secondaire, par des organismes de défense des consommateurs. Ceux-ci ont trouvé une oreille favorable chez des décideurs fédéraux soucieux de moderniser et diversifier la structure industrielle et le commerce international du Canada. Les résistances à la conversion, hormis celles d’entrepreneurs dépendants de marchés et normes américaines, ont pris des formes surprenantes, qui révèlent les normes, poids et mesures comme autant de langages par lesquels les Canadiens appréhendent le monde physique, et leur identité.
Globe: Revue internationale d’études québécoises, 2006
L’importance de l’hiver, de la nordicité dans la définition des identités québécoise et canadienn... more L’importance de l’hiver, de la nordicité dans la définition des identités québécoise et canadienne semble faire une certaine unanimité. Or, l’hiver « n’est plus ce qu’il était » : la modernisation l’a transformé, en a diminué la signification culturelle. Parmi ces transformations, la popularité du voyage hivernal en Floride chez les Canadiens, notamment les Ontariens et les Québécois, depuis les années 1950, semble désavouer un certain nationalisme fondé sur le refus de l’américanisation et sur la valorisation de la nordicité et de l’hiver.
Emotion, Space and Society, 2011
This article looks at the malandro, the bandit of Venezuela's poor neighborhoods, as a paradoxica... more This article looks at the malandro, the bandit of Venezuela's poor neighborhoods, as a paradoxical and hybrid figure of the urban Caribbean, a virtuoso actor of the cultures of emergency and Asphalt. Threatened by global uncertainty, postcolonial Creole cities turn to black Saints from Africa, as well as to creole gangsters from the barrio's backstreets. Malandros are delinquent yet consummate actors of the urban scene. At the turn of the twenty-first century, malandros have been thrown out of the margins to the center of society, becoming simultaneously heroes and enemies of the people. Malandros are crafty, but their lives are violent and they die young. Yet, they embody the shape of things to come. If the barrio reflects the violence of postcolonial urbanization, the violence of the malandro reflects, in an inverted image, injustice in a globalized world. These injustices are what we ought to think through and destroy.
Social History/Histoire Sociale, 2006
La popularité du voyage hivernal en Floride chez les Canadiens, notamment les Ontariens et Québéc... more La popularité du voyage hivernal en Floride chez les Canadiens, notamment les Ontariens et Québécois depuis les années 1950, semble désavouer un certain nationalisme fondé sur le refus de l'américanisation et la valorisation de la nordicité, de l'hiver. La relative stérilité de cette grille d'analyse, par le portrait sévère des snowbirds qui en résulte, pose cependant la question : que vont chercher les snowbirds en Floride, et quel cas font-ils de leur canadianité, ou de leur québécitude? Among Canadians, especially Ontarians and Québécois since the 1950s, winter travel to Florida has been hugely popular. This practice would seem to contradict particular aspects of a Canadian nationalism based on the rejection of American mores and culture and on the (uneasy) valuation of northernness and winter. The shortcomings of such an analysis, however, pose the question: Are snowbirds merely Americanized Canadians? How do they make sense of their Canadian or québécois identities, if they do so at all? * Godefroy Desrosiers-Lauzon est candidat au doctorat en histoire à l'Université d'Ottawa.
International Journal of Canadian Studies, 2011
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Papers by Godefroy Desrosiers-Lauzon