Americanized discourses of religious freedom and Christian persecution during the 2022 Ottawa trucker convoy

Abstract

In this article, Hannah Dick draws on Stewart Hoover’s concept of mediated imaginaries to help explain the transnational circulation of Americanized discourses during the 2022 Canadian trucker convoy protest in Ottawa. She examines the mediated objects produced by the convoy participants, including physical signs erected throughout downtown Ottawa and also those that circulated on social media platforms and in official communications published by convoy leaders. Using textual analysis, she explores the role of Americanized Christian discourses in charging the Canadian convoy movement with both political and existential meaning. It is argued that while the convoy does not represent a simple importation of American religio-political organizing consistent with theories of cultural imperialism, the symbolic resonances of Americanized discourses of freedom and Christian persecution nevertheless provide a flexible and robust affective infrastructure that is adaptable for the Canadian context.