Nightmares of the National Imaginary : Surveillance and Sousveillance in Canadian Literature

Nightmares of the National Imaginary explores how Canadian literature challenges and complicates our national identity. Surveillance often sorts people into a series of reductive categories while downplaying or ignoring the complexities of their lived experience. Literature demands that readers spend prolonged periods of time with characters who may seem simple at first glance, but after investing time in the author’s world, are revealed to be more than the categories they have been assigned.

Nightmares of the National Imaginary examines the way narrative, poetry, and drama often demonstrate how people are more complex than the labels they have been constrained to. The book’s analysis is steeped in works such as David Chariandy’s Brother and Ken Babstock’s On Malice which present an image of life in Canada that underwrites idealistic understandings of the country. The book features chapters that focus on marginalized groups such as migrants, people of colour, and LQBTQ+ Canadians, but it also appreciates the difficult work of policing. Furthermore, it considers the philosophical aspects of watching and being watched through the gaze of literary artists.

Literature scholar Tom Halford argues that if surveillance is the CCTV camera on high, then sousveillance, or looking from below, is the complex inner worlds of the people being watched. In this sense, the book insists, writing from or about those inner worlds becomes a political act.