In the past two decades, Québec has been racked by a series of controversies in which the religiosity of migrants and other minorities has been represented as a threat to the province’s once staunchly Catholic, and now resolutely secular, identity. In Moments of Crisis, Ian Morrison locates these controversies and debates within a long history of crises within – and transformations of – Québécois identity, from the Conquest of New France in 1760 to contemporary times. He argues that national identity, like all identities, is unstable and prone to moments of crisis. It is in these moments that the nation is articulated and rearticulated, reinforced, and ultimately reproduced. Morrison also argues that, rather than seeking to overcome current controversies by reconsolidating national identity, Québec should look on moments of crisis as opportunities to forge alternative conceptions of community, identity, and belonging.

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Ian A. Morrison is an assistant professor of sociology at the American University in Cairo.

Moments of Crisis is a remarkable contribution to the possibility of abandoning the nation as the only imaginable form of community and belonging. Morrison thoroughly reminds us of the difficulty of realizing the fantasy of national wholeness with the existence of moments of crisis. As such, the book opens debates and rethinking of the challenges of forming new ways of belonging, community, and identity instead of presenting alternatives and solutions to the fragility of national identity.

WILEY