“From redneck cowboys to pipeline cowboys to queer oil barons: Discourses of individualism and split subjectivity in an economically globalized Alberta”
In this paper I explore the production of what Toby Miller calls ‘well-tempered’ subjects. In this case, the ‘well-tempered’ subjects are in the province of Alberta.
Miller notes that the well-tempered subject is, like Bach’s well- tempered clavier/keyboard, something that has had the unruly notes removed. Bach broke with musical theory and practice of the time by banishing unruly notes from his musical compositions.
Like unruly notes, unruly subjects are outside what is considered to be well-tempered—they resist the norms of cultural policy that privileges those who comply.
Miller’s theory points to a split subject, a postmodern subjectivity that arises from the contradictions amongst the articulation of discourses of citizenship and cultural policy that are in turn linked to other discourses of neo-liberalism and democracy. The split subjectivity he writes about is exemplified in selves who are both selfish consumer-citizens as well as selfless civic-citizens.
As I will show in this paper, in the vagaries of postmodern living, unruly things happen to what seem to be ‘innocent’ representations. Moreover, the formation of both well-tempered subjects and unruly subjects, is subject to other splittings, which are effects of multiple discourses beyond that of citizen and consumer.
I am interested in the contradictions implicit in split subjectivity in Alberta and beyond by exploring discourses of gender, sexuality, and globalization as these articulate with dominant ideas about who and what is Albertan. As a consequence I show that a doubling effect of these discourses is they that produce not just well tempered and unruly subjects but unruly-well-tempered subjects and well-tempered unruly subjects through
Split subjects, according to Miller, are defined by incompleteness or indeterminacy--they are ethically incomplete. Split subjects are produced through discourses that take up both presence and absence as meanings circulate through cultural policy, representations, and narratives. Moreover, these discourses are often burdened with a sense of loss for
- something in the past
- or the right kind of person/people,
- or a shared history.
In the case of split subjectivity of Albertans, the ‘subject’ is haunted by an imaginary of what counts as Alberta-ness. Being haunted by an imaginary and elusive sense of what counts as Alberta-ness produces a subject constantly striving to improve on its self; one who tries to correct imperfections. For example,
- by making better consumer choices
- or adhering more closely to gender norms conforming to dominant ideas,
- or becoming more ruggedly individualistic in one’s thinking and acting.
In striving to improve and become better, well-tempered subjects are always purloined into a never-ending quest for ethical completeness. Both well-tempered and unruly subjects are doomed by the contradictions of a symbolic order rife with contradictions, ambiguities, and paradox that refuse ethical completeness.
(Individuals, entrepreneurs, redneck cowboy, pipeline cowboys, oil barons, oil executives, citizens, consumers, civil society as a mechanism of distinction – some individuals (members of civil society) are more clever, decent, polite, citizen-consumer (9)
What this sense of ethical incompleteness or split subjectivity leads to is a plenitude of representations – and hence formations – of subjects, publics and the appropriate conduct for each with a specifically regional flavour that is Alberta-ness.
Alberta-ness is paradoxically a collective subject position as well as an individualist subject position. What counts as a good citizen in the province of Alberta, as central to this cultural norm, is the idea of the rugged individual. The collective ‘Alberta’ is contradictorily made up of a dominant sense of citizenship, that of the rugged individual, whose very sense of self-interest contradicts the idea and well being of the collective. This is a distinctively uneasy subjectivity to inhabit.
In order to interrogate the contradictions I take up one trope of rugged individualism that represents the collective that is Albertaness: the cowboy. The cowboy haunts Alberta’s past and present as both a well-tempered and unruly subject.
As I go on to show in this paper, the cowboy is both a subject of possibility (an unruly self) and of normalization (a well-tempered self). Taken straight up, the cowboy reproduces tired and tempered subjection to social norms that cut off possibility.
The cowboy is, however, recuperable. By rustling up contradictions, ambiguity, and paradox that emerge by exploring subjugated gender and sexuality norms that further split the already split subject, I reveal a cowboy who is still a rugged individualist, but one who opens up possibility by refusing to banish the unruly.
Space of Places – Setting the context of Alberta Local, Alberta Global
Castells refers to the “space of places” as the “historically rooted spatial organization of our common experience--the nation-state, the workplace, the home, or a region like Alberta. All of these are traditionally located in a fixed territorial area of which we form a bond, a sense of identity and culture, OR NOT.
The fixed territorial area that is Alberta is a contradictory space of place: one that carries a profound sense of suffocation while simultaneously offering a wide-open space of possibilities. Suffocation and possibility work together in the expanse of oil production surrounding Ft. McMurray. Oil has made Alberta economically into a “have province” not only in Canada but within the global economy. As reported in 2003, Canada has the second largest reserves of oil in the world, next only to the Middle East. Economic growth in the province has been astronomical. But this space of possibility is as well, a space of suffocation in which air pollution and enormous pools of poisonous tailings (some the size of small lakes) are the product of oil extraction and production. These figuratively and literally produce a kind of breathless subject. One is awed by the sheer enormity of oil production in the tar sands and one can also be left breathless from respiratory arrest. Alberta has a sky rocketing number of inhabitants suffering from asthma and other COPD. Thus the space of place of Alberta is home to an unprecedented economic boom, it is a landscape of black gold richness and possibility while simultaneously being an expansive yet oppressive backdrop conspiring in the production of well tempered selves – selves of hierarchal human and non-human relations.
Alberta has a dominant identification with the global oil industrial complex linking the province beyond its fixed territory to a global economy desperately in need for and consumption of oil. This enmeshes Alberta within the economic and cultural policy of neo-liberalism with its strident discourses of laissez faire (unfettered) capitalism and individualism. Individualism, within neo-liberalism, describes a moral, political, or social outlook that stresses human independence and the importance of individual self-reliance, freedom and liberty. Individualists are opposed to external interference with an individual’s choice whether this interference is by society, the state, or any other group. Individualism is opposed to any view that stresses group, communal, societal, or national priority over the rights of the individual.
Discourses of neo-liberalism economic policy and individualism in Alberta are tempered by other important, adjacent and dominant discourses. Here, I want to address the discourses of , especially representations of queer sexuality and regional ideals of masculinity.
In the popular imaginary, both inside and outside the province, Albertans are often thought of as:
An alienated bunch of rednecks, right-thinking individuals, in support of a narrow sense of family values, business and free enterprise, unfettered economic growth, small-g government with shrinking social responsibilities as the provincial government continues the process of withdrawing from fiscal and ethical responsibility towards, for example, public education, affordable housing, health and welfare, the environment, non-human life forms, infra structure funding for cities and towns.
In the words of Alberta writer Aritha van Herk Albertans are ‘aggravating, awful, awkward, and awesome.” She goes on to say that, “Albertans are also very different from the rest of the nation. Our history is different, our politics are different, our ways of thinking are different” (2)
In keeping with the individualism of these aggravating, awful, awkward, and awesome Albertans, an enduring notion of Alberta-ness circulates through the embodiment of the maverick or cowboy. The cowboy reminds us of a common perhaps mythical past, a past that is only best partially represented and re-symbolized in the cowboy. The Calgary Stampede is a world famous festival celebrating cowboy culture held annually. Festivals celebrating cowboy poetry proliferate in towns and communities across the prairies. Cowboys are essentially cow-herders ranging over wide-open spaces– the ranch and beyond - spaces of unfettered possibility, echoing perhaps an unfettered freedom –which is perhaps one of the promises of liberalism? Which perhaps echoes capitalism and the freedom of choice?
Van Herk writes of this time as ‘before barbed wire’ (168). This is a time prior to fences and forms of governance that closed off possibility. Cowboys were free in their often isolated lives. So the narrative goes.
As Van Herk writes often a “cowboy’s only company was the soft ballad he sang to lull the animals.”
Cowboys, by definition had to be self-reliant and independent. They had to think on their ‘horse’. Cowboys were independent thinkers, rugged and individual, self-reliant. Cowboys were hard-workers, theirs is a physical labour taking place outdoors. This rugged sensibility and work ethic is captured in the phrase ‘red-neck’ as someone who earned a red neck from physical work under a strong Alberta sun. Cowboys were a tough breed and yet had a ‘restless charm’. They were known for their determined bachelorhood….the cowboy code of neighbourliness, loyalty, independence, and uncomplaining persistence became a part of the West’s code….[although] now pickup trucks have replaced horses. (168-174, van Herk).
Much of the idealism of individualism, the cowboy, and Alberta-ness has been achieved via a series of oppositions or exclusions. Individualist virtue for example, is not-woman. Cowboy virtue is for example a white man’s virtue, a straight virtue. Significantly, cowboys like all good male Albertans, are straight, that is heterosexual. (4)
Regardless of exclusions, the ‘red neck cowboy’ has become a highly popular in signaling Albertaness. The cowboy figure is taken up in museum displays, pulsed through print and electronic media, and consumed through products and services like red neck hair styling, car care, blue jeans, bumper stickers, and even beer.
Several years back, an editor for a weekly provincial magazine, the Alberta Report, wrote about a beer brewed specifically for Albertans. The beer was called ‘Redneck Beer.’ [I was fortunate to interview the owner of Alley Kat Brewery in Edmonton and was provided with a case of Redneck Beer that I dispersed at that presentation.]
Circulate label and container for Redneck Beer.
In Alberta, according to editor Paul Bunner, Alley Kat Brewery represents the entrepreneurial spirit celebrated in neo-liberalist discourse and embodied in a local Alberta businessman and business. The label of Redneck Beer further epitomizes the Alberta value of rugged individualism. A single cowboy on the wide-open range is featured. His is a lean muscularity signifying hard, physical labour. This resonates with discourse elsewhere of Alberta as “a province where people value hard work and independence…not a province that takes kindly to freeloaders, welfare bums, unions or whiners (Ford, 2004, 1). The Redneck Beer cowboy is dressed in a traditional denim shirt, blue jeans and a large western style cowboy hat. He sports a large handle-bar mustache, is unmistakably white, and according to the editor unabashedly straight. The redneck beer cowboy grins or leers out at those drinking beer as well as those analyzing the label.
Bunner unabashedly writes under the headline ‘no queer beer here,’ that in Alberta, even our beer can announce the ideal of Albertaness.
Bunner juxtaposes this straight up sense of Albertaness with an analysis of Molsons Brewery. Molson’s produced a series of ads in the 1990s in which the consumers of their beer were represented in homo-social pairings, of either men or women. The ads were not really unlike many other beer ads except that it was not clear if the couples were friends, buddies, or lovers. Molson Canadians ads show people consuming leisure and fun in the sun as well as beer. They are definitely not engaged in outdoor labour yielding a red neck.
According to Bunner, Molson’s is everything that Alley Kat Brewery is not. Molsons’ Canadian signals a large, anonymous corporate monstrosity that reproduces as a corporate identity the red maple leaf symbolic of Canadian national identity. Bunner thinks that the red maple leaf hails the idea of socialism through the colour red as well as signaling a Canada of big G government and nanny state social policy juxtaposed to the neo-liberalism of Alberta which supports small size government and laissez-faire economic policy) – or so the discourse goes.
If we take Bunner seriously, Canadian-ness is a different well-tempered self than the well-tempered self of Alberta-ness. Since Albertans are also Canadians, the split Alberta subject between citizen and consumer is further split between national and regional identity is another axis of split subjectivity.
Bunner’s editorial raises the deficiencies of the collective, nationalized identity that is Canadian in relation to an individualizing identity that is Albertan, but he inadvertently exposes other conundrums and contradictions about Alberta-ness.
A short while after the No Queer Beer Here editorial, another small article appeared in a different print media source. In this article, it was reported that Alley Kat Brewery had won the year’s top Brew Master’s Award for one of their beers. The top brewmaster was one Roxxie. Roxxie created the recipe that became Redneck Beer. Roxxie had brewing topnotch beers for many years and is a lifetime friend of Alley Kat Brewery’s owner. And, Roxxie, is a transgender male to female, who has been deeply involved in queer community culture. Her hometown Edmonton. For several years, entrepreneurial Alley Kat Brewery was the site of several queer community fundraisers and provided beer along with the space for these public events.
The well tempered subject of Alberta-ness, in the words of editorialist Bunner, is a straight subject. The very idea of something called Alberta-ness, a well tempered subject that is both a citizen of the province and a self-centred consuming individual – is in fact a contradiction. Alberta-ness, by definition, implies a collective or group identity. Further, the well tempered subject of the collective that is Alberta, as a rugged individual, one who thinks for himself, should surely have the choice to be any kind of sexual citizen he wishes. Yet, discourses of heteronormativity contradict the idea of choice in sexuality. There are present day ‘well-tempered’ citizens who embody the contradictions of individualism, straight masculinity, and neo-liberalism as these are forced together in the body of the redneck cowboy. These are split subjects, split between norms of citizen/consumer, regional identity/ national identity, straight/queer, individual/collective.
As well, it is likely that present day discourses about heteronormativity and the proper, normal citizen of Alberta erase earlier and unruly forms of sexuality. For example, the historical memory of cowboys who are avowed bachelors surely invites the interpretation, amongst others, of the possibility of a queer form of sociality or even sexuality? (Brokeback Mountain?) Through this historical memory the continuing presence of the cowboy as a figure of unruly social and sexual practices perhaps pulses through the Calgary Stampede but emerges fully-fledged in the gay rodeo that occurs annually outside Calgary in one of those open spaces of possibility known as ranchland and the prairies. And the cowboy of Redneck Beer fame stares out at all the other cowboys out there – male and female alike, in a leer of sexual licentiousness that produces gender ambiguous meanings as certainly as does, for example, the Molson Canadian beer ads of 1990s.
And the gender ambiguous ads of Molson Canadian beer, produce an unruly well-tempered Canadian subject, one whose sexuality, like Canadian-ness itself, is uncertain, is ambiguous.
This is a subject that is always ethically incomplete. But the split between the individual and collective grows exponentially alongside other discursively produced subject positions and formations. Adjacent discourses like sexuality, gender, racialization, class, age – produce manageable cultural subjects who are simultaneously unruly. Thus, redneck beer, representing the quintessential Albertan, is a beer brewed by an unruly sexual subject who is as well, an Albertan – the split subject splits again and again in a proliferating paradox of competing meanings and subject formations.
_the queer unruly subject is the individual, the straight subject is is the quintessential well tempered subject
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