Political Geography should be viewed with respect

Just a brief posting, very raw thoughts, but came across recent study that tried to compare administrative differences across Canada, but failed to articulate, that there are vast differences in the political / administrative landscape of Canada. In short, they do things differently in Quebec, than they do in Manitoba, Alberta, Ontario, and even smaller regions within the provinces.

But many studies fail to acknowledge this, perhaps for fear of reprisals. Political Geography has become very tainted since events of the 1st and 2nd World War, and probably rightly so.  But it can't be ignored. Quebec, like Scotland in the UK has a very different legal structure, and is not directly related to the fact that they speak a different language. They follow different legal code (common law vs Napoleonic/codified).  This has wide and important implications that are often ignored in many comparative studies. I wonder if it is ignored out of ignorance, or out of fear of treading too close to the notion of a 'distinct society'.

Jus Sanguinis for Cows? Are you what you eat?

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/us-bides-time-on-meat-labels-201737521.html.

Follow this link for context, but main point of interest is misguided use of ascription of identity, in this case cattle. Let me see if I understand this correctly.  Because animal is born in Canada it will forever be Canadian, even though it may be plugged full of same hormones, as its American counterparts, as it is raised in the United States.

So I am born in America, but plugged full of Canadian Ideology, cultural markers, but I will for ever be labled American? A wider and more peculiar application of jus sanguinis.  The more I think about this, this probably didn't make sense in a world where, some what naively it was assumed people (and cattle didn't travel), and it certainly doesn't make sense in the contemporary world of global travel.

Don't think I've had a chance to mention publication of new book that comments on Metis Identity, and serves to some degree as an update to volume produced by Brown and Peterson Being and Becoming Metis in North America, back in 1985.

Contours of a PeopleMetis Family, Mobility, and History, edited by Nicole St. Onge, Carolyn Podruchny and Brenda Macdougall. I've got a chapter in this one, Against spatialized ethnicity.