An anti‐racism methodology: The Native Sons and Daughters and racism against Asians in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada.

Over the past number of years there has been increased interest in racism and anti‐racism amongst geographers. This paper focuses on one type of anti‐racism methodology that relates to critically interrogating my own white colonial settler ancestors and particularly the institutions and structures of which they were a part, and using those understandings to resist the contemporary increase in white supremacy and anti‐Asian racism. It also seeks to demonstrate the links between anti‐racism and decolonization. Particularly, I examine the Native Sons and Daughters of British Columbia, Canada, in the Nanaimo city area, where my great‐grandparents from northern England and Scotland settled as working‐class miners at the beginning of the 20th century. I examine white working‐class settler racism against Asians, especially as practiced against Chinese and Japanese immigrants. While I do not argue that this is the only or even the most important type of anti‐racism methodology, this sort of research and associated production of knowledge can be useful in resisting present‐day anti‐Asian racism, even though I acknowledge that I am still embedded in colonial structures of racism and white privilege. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]