Current Student Bios
PhD Candidates
Adam Gaudry
Métis
Undergraduate Degree: Political Science, Honours, Queen's 
Masters of Arts: Sociology, Queen's University
Research interests: I am interested in Métis history and Métis political thought as it is lived by Métis people. My dissertation focuses on traditional forms of Métis governance--the Buffalo Hunt, Provisional Governments, Concil of St. Laurent, and Métis community life in general--and how this continues to provide invaluable insight to us today. Using a combination of oral and written histrocial narratives, I want to tell Métis history in a way that is consistent with a Métis wordview--A Métis People's History. Since most histories that concern Métis people (and are not written by us) seem to gloss over Métis experiences, sources, and information of Métis poeple, a re-evaluation, a re-telling, and contextualization are all sorely needed. By reasserting Métis knowledge and writing for a Métis audience, I hope to present a history of the Métis Nation that is rich in political, social and economic context, and values Métis history a something beneficial itself, not merely an event that effected the colonies in Eastern Canada. This project is situated in a larger political movement among Métis to reclaim history, culture, knowledge, and identiy for ourselves and for our own purposes. It is grounded in deep respect for the multigenerational resurgence of Métis autonomy that now spans five decades, as well as the culture of resistance that is over 140 years old.
Robyn Heaslip 
Settler Canadian - French/Irish Heritage
Undergraduate degree: Bachelor of Science, Biology and Anthropology, UVic
Master's in Resource and Environmental Management, SFU
Research interests: Understanding Coast Salish perspectives on ethical ways of being and taking up responsibilities in relation to land, place, and community. I'm interested in how these ethics can provide guidance for settlers in grassroots solidarity efforts and initiatives towards decolonization within their own communities. From a basis of Coast Salish teachings, I will explore other philosophies that may provide ideas for enacting an alternate, place-based and anti-colonial praxis. These fields include transformational learning, post-colonialism, community economies, social psychology, and critical race and feminist perspectives. I hope to identity and describe existing settler efforts towards solidarity and decolonization, to explore the narratives of identity, motivation and collective action of those involved in these efforts, and in the process create space for dialogue about settler roles and responsibilities within Coast Salish territories.
Jarrett Martineau
Cree/Dene of Frog Lake First Nation
Undergraduate Degree: English Literature & Canadian Studies, McGill University
Master of Arts: Indigenous Governance, UVic
Research interest: I am interested in the critical intersection of indigeneity, technology, art, aesthetics, music, and digital media. My research focuses on Indigenous hip-hop as a strategy for decolonization, political resistance and cultural resurgence, and a means of culturally remixing/reimagining/revisioning Indigenous identity. By engaging the evolving, ambivalent relationship between Indigenous Peoples and digital technologies, my research examines questions of being, subjectivity, territory, hybridity, and representation; and seeks to articulate strategies for community and youth engagement based on a commitment to Indigenous teachings and lifeways.
MAIG 2011
Jessica Benson-Nanagiishkung
Atikameksheng Anishnawbek and Chippewas of Rama First Nation, Anishnabek Nation
Undergraduate degree: Bachelor of Education, Intermediate-Senior Native Studies and History, Lakehead University
Bachelor of Art, History (Laurentian University)
Research interests: Indigenous human rights; Indigenous education; and Native-Newcomer relations in Canada.
Ian Ki'laas Caplette
9 Allied Tsimshian Nation Tribes of Lax Kw'alaams Gitando Tribe, Gisbutwaada Clan from the House of Gamiyaam
Undergraduate Degree: First Nations Studies with Political Science Minor, Vancouver Island University
Research interests: I am interested in decolonization theory as it pertains to fundamental relationships between land (including waters) and the Tsimshian people. Throughout colonization, land alienation has been the goal of the settler state and my interest is to research ways to re-establish the basis of individual and community connection to land through the resurgence of Tsimshian cultural pardigms including traditional name and uses resurgence, language revitalization through experiential learning and storywork, and restoration of ceremonial practices and spaces.
Erika Chase
Na:Tini-Xwe' (Hupa) of the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation in Northern CA & Shinnecock of Long Island, NY
Undergraduate degree: Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity, Stanford University
Research interests: the politics and practice of indigenous identity; methods of decolonizing imposed/internalized western governmental norms within tribal communities; indigenous environmental justice movements and acts of resistance; and youth empowerment as a potential path of native nation building.
Ryan Day
St'uxwtews, Secwepemc
Undergraduate degree: Economics, Simon Fraser University
Reserach interests: Indigenous economics; history of economic institutions and systems in Indigenous communities; investigating alternative, culturally-rooted and community-integrated means of poverty elimination to current popular "economic development" initiatives and plans in Indigenous peoples' territories and communities.
Deanne Grant
Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma
Undergraduate degree: Liberal Arts, Fort Lewis College
Master of Arts in International Studies, University of Oregon
Research interests: decolonization theory; Indigenous women's empowerment; Indigenous cultural survival
Isabella "Bella" Marble
Mi'kmaq from Indian Brook First Nation
Undergraduate degree: History, Dalhousie University
Research interests: education and indigenous people, indigenous women and community governance, traditional forms of justice and restorative justice.
Pablo Miss
Maya Q'eqchi' of Southern Belize, Central America
Undergraduate degree: Geography, University of Hawaii at Hilo
Research interests: The Maya Alcalde System of community governance in Southern Belize as a site of cultural resistance and resurgence; intercultural education and indigenous peoples; economic strategies for indigenous peoples and development with identity.
Tina Powell
Dutch and Irish Ancestry
Undergraduate degree: Globalization studies, Huron University College
Research interests: I am broadly interested in researcharching the ways in which Indigenous-setter and Indigenous-state relations are necessarily distorted under the dominant new-colonial/capitalist paradigm.
Mylan Tootoosis
Poundmaker First Nation
Undergraduate degree: Indigenous Liberal Studies, Institute of American Indian Arts
Research interests: creating modes of cultural survivance through the use of community operated archives and research centers as means of cultural and community protection and defense, used also to aid in the creation and promotion of indigenous ideas of solution and scholarship, on the most fundamental level of community and nation. Mylan plans to continue to promote and assist in acts of cultural survivance through inquiry and reserach: Postindian
MAIG 2010
Khalilah Alwani
Pakistani and European-Settler Ancestry
Undergraduate degree: Political Science, Women's Studies Minor, University of Victoria
Research Interest: I am interested in the resurgence of cultural land-based practices and sustainable ways of being in relationship with the land, as practices of "disalienation" and reconnection. I am also interested in the fine art of solidarity amongst people and communities with interconnected struggles and shared commitments to processes of decolonization. Of particular intrigue to me in relation to all of this, is the important role of food and traditional food systems--the cultural roles and visceral experiences of growing, gathering, catching, cooking, eating, trading, and sharing foods.
Julie Froekjaer-Jensen
Danish, Resident on Haida Territory, Landed Immigrant to Canada
Undergraduate degree: B.A., Business Management, Honours, DeMontfort University, UK (2000)
Current Graduate Fellow at the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society, UVic
Research interests: I am currently looking at the relationship between the revitalization of land-based cultural practices and the process of cultural restoration. In particular, I am looking at the ways in which rebuilding a pre-small pox trail system on the north coast of Haida Gwaii may serve as a framework for this, and how land and ocean-based cultural practices in traditional use-territories may have served to inform traditional systems of governance on Haida Gwaii. On behalf of a Haida arts-group, I am currently also working on preparing the pitching of a film project The Reconnecting of the Spiritual Trad Routes based on footage from an arts exchange between a group of Haida and Mayan ceremonial artists in Lago Atitlan, Guatemala in 2009.
Yawai Hagao
Tayal from Qoyaw Native Community, Atayal Nation, Taiwan
Undergraduate Degree: English & Teaching, National Taiwan Normal University
Research interest: I am interested in Native community governance, cultural education and various Nations' collective resistance to governmental encroachements. My research will focus on Native community governance and traditional knowledge as a foundation for decolonization, Indigenous resurgence and sustainable development.
MAIG 2009
Ashley Maracle
Mohawk from Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, Tyendinaga 
Undergraduate degree: History and Global Development Studies, Queens University
Research interest: colonial trends and sites of resistance; Indigenous women; traditional methods of justice; and possible ways to empower indigenous youth.
Taiaiake Alfred
Jeff Corntassel
Waziyatawin
