Society for Cultural Anthropology

Oral Presentation Session

The Acadian Métis on the Geographic and Social Margins

Presenter(s)

• SO

  Sean O'Connell

To the outsider, the Acadians and Acadian Métis are easily confounded. Quite often they occupy the same geographic spaces as well as speak the same language(s) and have overlapping cultures. Yet, it is possible for distinctive identities to be maintained even in close geographical proximity. This paper will examine how the Acadian Métis lived quite often at the geographical and social margins, marginal to both the “pure” Acadian as well as to the larger Anglo-Canadian society. The Acadian Métis occupied not only the social periphery, but also were located in the margins of physical communities, maintaining a separate existence even as they bordered their Acadian neighbours in the Maritimes.