摘要：As the title implies, this issue of the Global Media Journal -- Canadian Edition (GMJ -- CE) focuses on the notion of differences, namely how these are constructed, homogenized, amplified, muted or negotiated in the prevailing social, political and cultural climate of Canadian society. At the same time, we wish to interrogate the manufacturing of particular images, paying close attention to their witting and unwitting uses in veiling hegemonic structures. The idea of veiling is something that we wish to subvert, and through a kind of détournement (Debord, 1983), we aim to turn the gaze of dominance from those subjected to veiling discourses to those who intentionally veil these differences. More explicitly, we are using the concepts of the veil and veiling as metaphoric devices to communicate not only that which is covered and hidden from the public gaze, but also, in a semiotic sense, that which conveys the gendered dynamics inherent to Canadian society, whereby the state assumes a masculinized role of protector while minorities are seen as feminized subjects who should, in the interests of a patriarchal bargain, contrive to be, if not inculcate themselves as, docile subjects (Foucault, 1978; 1995). This pastoral power (Foucault, 1982) manifests itself both through civilities and through brute strength, as evident in the power of state security apparatuses (Odartey-Wellington, in this issue; Smolash, 2009). The colour line makes explicit the division between those who are accepted as part of the nation and those who can be easily ejected from the body politic (Razack, 2008). The logics of inferiorization, differentiation, assimilation and rejection are part and parcel of the project of empire.
