Imagining Difference is an ethnography about historical and contemporary ideas of human difference expressed by residents of Fernie, BC -- a coal-mining town transforming into an international ski resort. Focusing on diverse experiences of people from the European diaspora, Robertson analyzes expressions of difference from the multiple locations of age, ethnicity, gender, class, and religion.

Her starting point is a popular local legend about an indigenous curse cast on the valley and its residents in the nineteenth century. Successive interpretations of the story reveal a...