Stampede: Misogyny, White Supremacy and Settler Colonialism

This book offers the first-ever intersectional feminist analysis of the gendered and racialized dynamics of the contemporary Calgary Stampede.

Kimberly A. Williams wants the annual Calgary Stampede to change its ways. An intrepid feminist scholar with a raucous sense of humour, Williams combines memoir, theory, history, pop culture, and current events to challenge readers to make feminist sense of how gender and race matter at Canada’s oldest and largest western heritage festival.

Stampede! takes readers on an adventure into Alberta’s past, looking at how the Calgary Stampede came to be and tracing its evolution to the Centennial event in 2012. Using a variety of cultural materials―photography, print advertisements, news coverage, poetry, and social media―Williams asks who gets to be part of the “we” in the Stampede’s 2012 slogan “We’re Greatest Together.” Who gets left out? And what do you have to do to get in?

Williams examines some beloved traditions of the Calgary Stampede through the lens of the feminist killjoy: the parade, the First Nations Princess, the Stampede Queen and her two princesses, First Nations Village, and the chuckwagon races. She uses ads from the Centennial planner to weave a story about the Albertan petro cowboy, his family, and his community. And she asks how the Treaty 7 Nations fit into this narrative about the white settler cowboy.

There’s no question the Stampede is a widely loved event, but could it do more to ensure that we actually are “greatest together”? Williams thinks so, and she concludes the book with some ideas for a new way forward.