“Schadenfreude” may well have been the word. Thanks.
“Love-hate relationship” isn’t exactly the concept I was looking for.
Also, just to clarify: I wasn’t necessarily going to use the word in the paper - researching the paper just reminded me that I might have run across such a word in the past. In other words, I thought that there was an existing, widely-accepted word that I simply couldn’t think of at the time. I was being curious more than pretentious or arrogant (I think - or maybe not.)
Sorry Pipeliner if I was too hard on you! Actually I’ve been getting quite a laugh thinking about “Canadian Schadenfreude;” it sounds like something from Saturday Night Live!
Forget about using compounded English words; why not just say that the Can-Ams’ feelings or perceptions of the native populations were contradictory or conflicting, or were marked by ambivalence, uncertainty, and indecisiveness?