Sociology and Duncan Carter-Johnson

 SOC 160  - Assignment

My name is Duncan Carter-Johnson and I am a 6’3 agnostic white Canadian male college student who lives in Victoria, BC. My family and I moved here before I was one year old from New Brunswick though I have no recollection of the place and consider my home town to be Victoria.

According to “23-and-me”, I have close to 100% western European DNA and what I know about my family solidifies this image.

Benjamin Franklin Johnson

On my mothers’ side of the family, there is a long history of Mormonism dating back hundreds of years where my ancestors traversed Canada and the United States leading back to Europe. My family are unquestionably settlers that came across from Europe in the 1700s, looking to find a place to live that was better than where they came from. I have been schooled in the history of colonization, which paints these ancestors in a negative light. Though this is entirely fair and justified, I do not have disdain for them. I have very strong connections with this side of the family, which is also unusually large. 

To make this simple, my great-great-great-grandfather had 7 wives and 45 children. My grandmother mocks him, telling us that at the end of his life, none of the wives would move with him to Mexico (they had all pretty much been strong women who raised their children on farms, doing the work to keep everything going). Luckily, there has been no polygamy in the family since then, but the family is large. 

Names of the wives of Benjamin Franklin Johnson

In the summer, I spend some time in the Shuswap (Secwepemculucw) with my family, on 60 acres of land along the lake. There are usually 80 or so people there, with all the great-aunts and uncles, and too many cousins and second cousins for me to reasonably count. There is so much variety in people’s politics and interests and abilities. There is lots of time for music, and games. Despite the size of the family, it is very close, and people are in contact with each other year-round. For example, we have a family blog with new posts appearing every few days.

Both my parents are important in my life, but my mom’s extended family has been more powerfully present in my life and has shaped my identity. My father’s side of the family is a bit more of a mystery. He was adopted by his parents when they were older. So he was raised by a father who had been wounded during the second world war, and by parents who had lived through the depression. They were also roman catholic. Apart from allergies and interactions with my paternal grandmother, my father’s family is less present in my life than my mother’s. Despite both my parents coming from religious households, neither enforced those beliefs on me or my brother. They gave us space to come to conclusions about religion on our own.

When I think about what makes up my identity or ancestry, I honestly am quite confused about how to think of myself. I was born in Canada which makes me a Canadian citizen through Canada as a whole was built upon another society that is still present today. Thinking about challenges to Canadian legitimacy throws into question not only how I think about the country but how I think about myself. My ancestors came to the Americas from England and parts of France. But other than knowing this, I have little to no connection with those parts of the world. In my life, I have many connections to my family in Victoria and in Salmon Arm. These are where I feel most connected to today.

When others see me, I presume they see the stereotypical white male that has a relatively easy life without any hardship. I would like to say that these presumptions aren’t true and that they misrepresent me and my life, but I can’t. In my life I have not been racially profiled, I have never had to worry about access to clean food, water, and shelter. I have had access to learning resources and private tutors to help me when I have had trouble in school. I live in an upper-middle-class household with two working white-collar parents that are present in my life. I know that I fit the stereotype to the letter. Part of this bothers me though I don’t let it affect how I see myself.

I see myself as someone who is first and foremost a total nerd; from Star Wars to Lord of the Rings, I have invested hours of my life living these stories out in my head. I love to debate and question things I hear which has made me very interested in history and sociology. I am a fan of bland foods and like to expand my number of friends when I get the opportunity. I have grown up on traditional first nations territory both here in Victoria by Mount PKOLS and in Salmon Arm in Secwepemc territory during the summers. The stories I have heard (both from my grandmother and from Secwepemc storytellers) and the experiences I have had there have changed my perspectives on some established norms, and have helped shape me into the person I am today, regardless of my ancestry. It is true for me as much as it is for anyone, that you can’t fully understand a person by who their ancestors were. Our ancestry may provide a paper trail that lets us connect back to pieces of our history that may or may not be relevant today. To me, that provides only an outline of who you are, and the rest of your experiences fill things in.

Duncan Carter-Johnson