Photography, Memory, and Refugee Identity

The Voyage of the SS Walnut, 1948

By Lynda Mannik
Categories: Social Sciences, Sociology, History, World History, Art & Performance Studies, Art, Immigration, Emigration & Transnationalism, Race & Ethnicity, Canadian History, Anthropology
Publisher: UBC Press
Hardcover : 9780774824446, 216 pages, April 2013
Paperback : 9780774824453, 216 pages, January 2014
Ebook (PDF) : 9780774824460, 216 pages, April 2013
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Table of contents

Preface

Introduction

1  Passengers’ Perspectives: The Voyage and
Detention, 1948-49

2  Arrival by Boat and the Media, 1948

3  Still Photos Come to Life at the Pier 21 Museum in
1999

4   Memories and Stories Sixty Years Later

5   Nationalism and Identity in Retrospect

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

An intimate portrait of how we look at refugees and how refugees look
at themselves through the medium of photography.

Description

In 1948, a small ship carrying Estonian refugees arrived at Pier 21 in
Halifax. In this absorbing work, anthropologist Lynda Mannik analyzes
the refugee experience through the photographic record of those who
made that harrowing voyage. Drawing on a collection of photographs
taken during the voyage and at Pier 21, Mannik asks surviving
passengers to describe their journey, their reception in Canada, and to
what extent the photos reflect their experiences as they remember them.
The photographs in the SS Walnut collection, she argues, bear
witness to the refugee experience even as the meanings attached to them
have changed over time and in shifting contexts.