Essays
Every product has a supply chain. Every supply chain has a history. These essays follow the paper trail.
-
2024British Columbia History Magazine, Summer 2024. Open AccessB.C. Sugar was the nation's fifth largest sugar company. But what many Canadians don't know is that it also had sugar plantations abroad. This essay documents this history.
-
2023Canadian Sugar Was Built on ViolenceOriginally published as “Uncovering the Violent History of the Canadian Sugar Industry,” The Conversation, 15 March 2023. Republished in Salon, the Vancouver Sun, and other outlets. Updated version forthcoming 2026. Open AccessCanadian sugar was built on enslavement and indenture.
-
2020The Stores That Built CanadaOriginally published in Active History, July 2020. Updated version forthcoming 2026. Open AccessAs their own records reveal, the Hudson’s Bay Company and Eaton’s were not only retailers. They were also instruments of colonization.
-
2020NiCHE (Network in Canadian History & Environment), 25 June 2020. Open AccessWartime rationing and postwar recovery indicates that consumer culture is more resilient than it looks.
-
2020The Conversation, 11 May 2020. Open Access
-
2020University of Toronto Press Blog, 1 May 2020. Open AccessWhat the history of Canadian consumer culture tells us about shopping under uncertainty.
-
2019With Kiera Mitchell. LSE Impact Blog, 18 September 2019. Also published as “Behind Every Successful Man”, LSE Business Review, 21 September 2019; and World Economic Forum, 24 September 2019. Open Access
-
2018With Andrea Eidinger. The Conversation, 16 November 2018. Republished in the National Post and Montreal Gazette. Open Access
How to Cite
Belisle, Donica. “Essays.” Donica Belisle. donicabelisle.ca/essays.html. Accessed