Paper short abstract:

Drawing upon fieldwork findings, this paper investigates how Acadians in the present experience, enact their identities in their day-to-day lives and to what degree they experience nationalism and forgetting as Acadian people in the community of Pomquet, Nova Scotia.

Paper long abstract:

Acadians are often associated with their deportation in 1755, the Grand Dérangement; however, it is unclear if this historic event is still important for Acadian public memory with the various sociopolitical and nationalistic reconstructions of Acadian identities that have occurred between the 1880s and today. Drawing upon preliminary fieldwork findings, this paper investigates how Acadians in the present experience, use/enact their identities in their day-to-day lives and to what degree they experience nationalism and forgetting as Acadian people in the community of Pomquet, Nova Scotia. Differing from their Acadian counterparts in New Brunswick, Acadians in Pomquet were not exposed to the narrative of the deportation and nationalism until the 1960s. Although the community has a focus on local history, there was less attention paid to the national movement in the 1880s which contained elements of forced forgetting. It was not until Nova Scotia Acadians began to mobilize with the La Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse in 1968 with a branch in Pomquet that the community became fully aware of the Acadian Renaissance and the narratives that emerged from it. This paper will examine how contemporary Acadians experience Acadian popular memory and identity, the ways in which national myth has impacted the community since the 1960s, and how Acadian identities have adapted to the shifting political and social landscape in their community and Nova Scotia.