Research and community-based projects
Everyday, Concordia faculty and students across a broad range of disciplines combine their passion and expertise to teach, study and produce research to advance our shared knowledge and understanding of Indigenous issues.

Our current community-based projects
Warren Linds
Associate professor, Applied Human Sciences
Acting Out! But in a Good Way is a research project that offers workshops that use theatre and other arts-based practices to Indigenous youth in the File Hills Qu’Appelle Tribal Council (FHQTC) area. In these workshops, we play theatre games, construct images, and create short plays to examine the choices that affect health and wellness. The games provide youth with an opportunity to practice leadership and to test different behaviours. Youth who have participated in our workshops tell us that they help develop self-esteem.
Project 1: Collaborating communities
Acting out? But in a Good Way
Applied arts and wellbeing with Indigenous youth in Saskatchewan
Project 1: Collaborators
Warren Linds, Co-Principal Investigator
Linda Goulet, Co-Principal Investigator, First Nations University of Canada
Indigenous Peoples Health Research Centre
Karen Schmidt, Community Research Consultant
YAP Program, File Hills Qu'Appelle Tribal Council Health Services
File Hills Qu'Appelle Tribal Council
Link: http://actingout.iphrc.ca/
Project 2: Collaborating communities
Senator Myles Venne School -Lac La Ronge Indian Band.
Collaborators
Warren Linds, Co-Principal Investigator
Linda Goulet, Co-Principal Investigator, First Nations University of Canada
Indigenous Peoples Health Research Centre
Karen Schmidt, Community Research Consultant
YAP Program, File Hills Qu'Appelle Tribal Council Health Services
File Hills Qu'Appelle Tribal Council
Project 2: Collaborators
Same as above, in addition to Lacey Eninew, Drama Teacher.
Karl S. Hele
Associate professor, First Peoples Studies program
Anishinaabek News
Publish book reviews (500-1000 words) and Articles (750-100 words).
Items relate to Anishinaabeg or Indigenous peoples (book reviews) and Anishinaabeg, Canadian, and Garden river histories or stores (articles).
Garden River Community Newsletter
Publish transcribed documents with commentary drawn from my research.
Related links
http://anishinabeknews.ca/
http://www.gardenriver.org/newsletter.php
Karl S. Hele
Associate professor, First Peoples Studies program
Column (prints about 10 times per year) on issues relating to the Anishinaabeg history of the Sault region, Indian Act, and recent politics as well as court decisions.
Collaborating community
Sault Star
Lorna Roth
Professor, Communication Studies
Media infrastructure studies. A re-examination of the phases of First Peoples' media development in Canada focused on a comparison of initial and present infrastructural gaps. The work shows the parallel patterns of infrastructural challenges and documents the ways in which critical communication gaps have spurred various kinds of technical bypasses to enable media accessibility to First Peoples who have been ignored as technology users in the past.
Collaborating communities
N/A
Collaborators
Igloolik Isuma productions executive was generous in their co-operation for this research project - Zack Kunuk and Norman Cohen, in particular.
Links
Roth, Lorna. 2013. “Canadian First Peoples’ Mediascapes: (Re)framing a Snapshot with Three Corners,” in Leslie Shade (ed.). Mediascapes. Toronto: Thomson, pp. 364 – 389. Peer-Reviewed.
Roth, Lorna. 2007. “(re)Colouring the Public Broadcasting System in Canada: A Case Study of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network,” in Fuller, Linda K. (ed.) Community Media: International Perspectives (Aboriginal/ Indigenous Experiences, Current Case Studies, Virtual Community Visions). London: Sage Publications.
Roth, Lorna. 2005. (Revised and republished). “First Peoples’ Television in Canada’s North: A Case Study of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network,” in Mediascapes: New Patterns in Canadian Communication. Attallah, Paul and Leslie Shade (eds.). Toronto: Nelson Thomson Learning. Original Publication in 2002.
Roth, Lorna. 2005. (Revised and republished). “First Peoples’ Television in Canada’s North: A Case Study of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network,” in Mediascapes: New Patterns in Canadian Communication. Attallah, Paul and Leslie Shade (eds.). Toronto: Nelson Thomson Learning. Original Publication in 2002.
Mark K. Watson
Associate professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology
My long-term engagement with Indigenous Ainu living in and around Tokyo has concentrated on documenting and analyzing the emergence of a social and political Ainu movement in the city. Its focus on the challenges made by Ainu leaders and groups to the regionalization of Ainu policy measures to the northern island of Hokkaido extends my argument to rethinking the image of geographical essentialism implicit to historical paradigms of Indigenous research.
Collaborators
Ann-elise Lewallen (University of California at Santa Barbara), Kanako Uzawa (Tromso University), Mark Hudson (Nishi-Kyushu University), Richard Siddle (Hokkaido University), Centre for Ainu and Indigenous Studies, Hokkaido University, Terachi Goichi (Tokyo School of Economics).
Collaborating communities
I have been working with Ainu in Tokyo, Japan since 1999.
Mark K. Watson
Associate professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology
We produce a bi-weekly Inuktitut language radio show in Montreal. The show called Nipivut (‘Our Voice’) is the first time an Inuktitut language program is being broadcast in a southern city. The principal goal of the radio show is to help build an inclusive Inuit community and aims to provide a voice for Inuit in the Montreal community. Listeners are encouraged to continue the conversations and debates inspired by the show through the use of social media.The radio program promotes the Inuktitut language in Montreal and provides a forum for Inuit to publicly discuss community life and issues in the city. This initiative also raises the profile of Inuit among the non-Inuit community in Montreal; creating a positive outlet for cultural awareness in the city. Through the use of live broadcasts, podcasts and the on-line archiving of the shows, this project seeks to use radio as a means of connecting Inuit living in the south with their families and friends in the north.
Collaborators
CKUT90.3FM, Cabot Square Project, Avataq Cultural Institute and MOntreal Inuit community members including: Annie Pisuktie, Akenisie Qumak, Pauyungie Nutaaraluk, Akeeshoo Sataa, Nally Weetaluktuk,
Collaborating communities
Inuit in Montreal but also in other cities and through the Arctic (including Alaska and Greenland).
Collaborators
Ivirtivik employment centre in Verdun; Cabot Square Project.
Related links
http://nunalijjuaq.edublogs.org/nipivut/
https://soundcloud.com/nipivut
https://www.facebook.com/nipivut
Mark K. Watson
Associate professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology
As an extension of the Nipivut radio show, in 2016 we are starting to run radio workshops for youth in northern communities starting in Kangirsuk.
Collaborators
Youth Fusion, Theatre Incline, Avataq Cultural Institute
Collaborating communities
Inuit youth in Kangirsuk (Nunavik)
Lorna Roth
Professor, Communication Studies
Radio for Better Health. Mixing Traditions: "Miyupimaatisiiun" on Radio is a project to develop health promotion programming on regional and local radio services in the James Bay Regional Radio Network.
Collaborating communities
James Bay Cree (Cree Health Board) & Montreal General Hospital
Collaborators
Montreal General Hospital - Dr. Elizabeth Robinson
James Bay Cree Communications Society - Diane Reid, President (at the time of research)
Related links
1994. “Mixing Traditions: "Miyupimaatisiiun" on Radio - Doing Radio Health Promotion in the James Bay Cree Communities.” Module du Nord Québécois, Department of Community Health, Montreal General Hospital. In English and French versions.
1992. Evaluation Report on "Miyupimaatisiiun" Health Promotion Project. Module du Nord Québécois, Department of Community Health, Montreal General Hospital.
Jason Edward Lewis
Professor, Design and Computation Arts
Skins is a series of digital-media workshops for Aboriginal youth offered by an Aboriginally determined team of game designers, artists and educators known as Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace.
The unique curriculum begins with traditional storytelling and proceeds to teach participants how to tell a story in a very new way--as a video game. With that foundation in place, the students then learn important skills for the production of video games and machinima, such as game design, art direction, 3D modeling and animation, sound, and computer programming.
Lessons are taught by faculty, students and graduates of the Computation Arts programme at Concordia University. They are joined by Aboriginal mentors who lend their considerable expertise as cultural consultants, as well as moral support to the young producers.
Skins aims to empower Native youth to be producers of new technologies, not just consumers of them. Explore the links to see what we’ve done!
Collaborating communities
Kahnawake Education Centre (Kahnawake)
Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning (Yellowknife)
Collaborator
Owisokon Lahache
Related link
skins.abtec.org
Sara Terreault
part-time professor, Dept of Theological Studies
Matthew Anderson
affiliate professor, Dept of Theological Studies
Every summer since 2014, Profs Terreault and Anderson have taken Concordia students on a 35-km walking journey from the Hochelaga Rock monument located on the ground of McGill University to the South Shore community at Kahnawà:ke Mohawk Territory. The journey is part of their coursework in the study of pilgrimage and meaningful mobility. The students walk through the urban landscape, learning to re-read and re-member the stories alternately recorded in or erased from the fabric of the city, before crossing the Saint Lawrence Seaway on a path constructed with expropriated Mohawk land. During their stay in Kahnawà:ke, they learn about the history of colonialisation and resistance from those who continue to live it. This project is organised in collaboration with the Longhouse of the Mohawk Nation, and the Kanien'kehá:ka Onkwawén:na Raotitióhkwa Language and Cultural Centre. External funding has made this journey possible, including generous donations and contributions from the McGill Office for Religious and Spiritual Life (MORSL), the Catholic Archdiocese of Montreal (space and funding), and the Montreal Lutheran Council.
Related links
From Old Montreal to Kahnawake - Concordia News Story by Matthew Anderson, June 18, 2014
Walking Right Off the Map - KAIROS Canada, September 14, 2017
One Pilgrimage, Many Quests - CBC Tapestry, October 15, 2017
Vimeo links: 1 Intro to the trek 2 2017 trek
Our current research projects
Felice Yuen
Associate professor, Department of Applied Human Sciences
The project stems from Journey Women. However, its main focus is Aboriginal female offenders. Using arts-based methods (creating talking stick for their children), an Indigenous facilitator will help Aboriginal women in prison explore their experiences of healing. We are currently in the data collection phase of this project.
Collaborators
Elizabeth Fry Society
Jason Edward Lewis
Professor, Design and Computation Arts
AbTeC is a network of academics, artists and technologists whose goal is to define and share conceptual and practical tools that will allow us to create new, Aboriginally-determined territories within the web-pages, online games, and virtual environments that we call cyberspace. Our multi-faceted effort will include a storytelling series, an ongoing gamesnight, a modding workshop, Machinima, and performance art.
Our main objective is to identify and implement methods by which Aboriginal people can use new media technologies to complement our cultures. In other words, how can we use the exciting new tools now available on the personal computer to empower Native people, especially our youth, to both preserve and produce our knowledge, culture and language in this highly technological society? AbTeC's roots lie with a project called CyberPowWow, a pioneering on-line gallery and chat space for contemporary Aboriginal art. It was through CyberPowWow that we realized that, even on the Internet, Native people need a self-determined place to call home.
Collaborating communities
N/A
Collaborators
N/A
Link
www.abtec.org
Elizabeth Dianna Fast
Assistant professor, Applied Human Sciences
A First Peoples Storytelling Exchange: Intersecting College and Community Circles will support the creation and sharing of new stories about postsecondary education that will inspire and support more Indigenous students to pursue their academic goals. It will develop strong community-college ties by visiting Indigenous communities to listen to their stories about education and their social, economic, and cultural experiences, needs, concerns, goals, and opportunities.
Using a participatory approach, youth, parents, elders and community members will shape stories and experiences about their experiences with postsecondary education. This project is supported by a SSHRC College and Community Innovation program (awarded in 2016) over the next three years.
Collaborating communities
Kahnawake survival school, urban Aboriginal community in Montreal, emerging partners are James Bay Cree and Nunavik communities.
Collaborators
Susan Briscoe and Michelle Smith (Dawson), Jason Lewis and Karl Hele (Concordia), Nicole Ives and Courtney Montour (McGill), John Abbott, Kahnawake Survival School, Lindsay Morcom (Queens University), Cree Health Board.
Karl S. Hele
Associate professor, First Peoples Studies program
My borderlands research explores the intersections of Indigenous (Anishinaabeg and Metis) sovereignty, territory, family, and daily life as burgeoning settler states (Canada/Ontario and the United States/Michigan) imposed their borders and wills on region and its peoples. While my research has present day implications, I focus on the 1783 to 1913/4 period.
Collaborating communities
The Anishinaabeg and the Sault Ste. Marie Borderlands.
The community engaged with the project is the broader Anishinaabeg and Metis communities in the Sault Ste. Marie region (Canada and the US). The majority of consultation and involvement however rests with Garden River First Nation.
Collaborators
They wish to remain anonymous.
Related link
(None are open source): http://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Catalog/hele.shtml
Karl S. Hele
Associate professor, First Peoples Studies program
This project involves the examination of how Garden River First Nation presented its interpretation of the past and present through a variety of public performances between 1899 and 1969.
The major performance piece was the Hiawatha Play, c.1900 to 1969. Other plays/performances include Etienne Brule Play and How the Gospel Came to Algoma Play as well as active participation in regional and national events either through performing a play or constructing an 'Indian village'.
The research is showing that despite some conformance to 'images' of what an Indian looks like, the plays and actors had very different ideas of what they were doing.
Collaborating community
Garden River First Nation
Lorna Roth
Professor, Communication Studies
My research and writing have been historical in perspective and goals. I have written a history of First Peoples' television and media.
Collaborating communities
13 Northern Native Communication Societies from across Canada; native projects in the South across the country.
Collaborators
N/A
Related links
Roth, Lorna. June, 2005. Something New in the Air: The Story of First Peoples’ Television Broadcasting in Canada. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Roth, Lorna. 2010. "The Social Movement of Indigenous Media in Canada" in John Downing (ed.), Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media. 5 pages. London: Sage Publications. (Invited to write this article.)
Lorna Roth. 2011. “First Peoples’ Television in Canada: Origins of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network,” in Bredin, Marion and Sigurjon B. Hafsteinsson (eds.) Indigenous Screen Cultures. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press. Chapter 1, pp. 17 – 34. Peer reviewed.
Roth, Lorna. (2000) “The Crossing of Borders and the Building of Bridges: Steps in the Construction of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network in Canada,” Special Issue on Canadian Communications. Gazette (International Journal of Communication Studies. Vol. 62(3-4):251-269. Sage Publications. London. Thousand Oaks and New Delhi.
Elizabeth Dianna Fast
Assistant professor, Applied Human Sciences
In November 2013, the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal (NWSM) and Batshaw Youth and Family Centre (BYFC) signed a collaboration agreement in order to improve child welfare services to Aboriginal children and families served by Batshaw Youth and Family Centre.
Through a participatory action research project and employing an Indigenous advisory committee (the Circle of Care committee), this research will engage in focus groups over the next three years to answer the following research questions:
1. What proportion of children being serviced by BYFC are Aboriginal?
2. How do BYFC workers and Aboriginal organizations envision culturally appropriate or culturally adapted services and why?
3. To what extent are culturally appropriated/adapted services being implemented across the agency?
This project is supported by Concordia strategic hire research funds and Building Research Capacity in mainstream and Aboriginal child welfare agencies SSHRC partnership grant.
Collaborating communities
Native Women's Shelter of Montreal and the Circle of Care committee of the Montreal urban Aboriginal Strategy Network
Collaborators
Native Women's Shelter of Montreal; Rising Sun Daycare, Circle of Care Committee (a sub-committee of the Montreal Urban Aboriginal Strategy Network); Nakuset Shapiro; Batshaw Youth and Family Centres; SSHRC partnership grant PI Nico Trocmé
Jason Edward Lewis
Professor, Design and Computation Arts
The Initiative for Indigenous Futures (IIF) is a partnership of universities and community organizations dedicated to developing multiple visions of Indigenous peoples tomorrow in order to better understand where we need to go today. Through its four main components – workshops, residencies, symposia, and archive– IIF will encourage and enable artists, academics, youth and elders to imagine how we and our communities will look in the future. IIF is conducted by Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace (AbTeC), a research network based at Concordia University.
Collaborating communities
Kahnawake Education Centre
Kanien'keháka Onkwawén:na Raotitióhkwa Language and Cultural Center (Kahnawake)
Kontinónhstats Mohawk Language Custodians Association (Kanehsatà:ke)
imagineNATIVE Film + Media Festival (Toronto)
Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning (Yellowknife)
Collaborators
Owisokon Lahache
Erin Freeland Ballantyne – Dechinta Bush University Centre for Research and Learning
Heather Igloliorte – Concordia University
Jane Tingley – University of Waterloo
Julie Nagam – OCAD University
Pippin Barr – Concordia University
Rilla Khaled – Concordia University
Stephen Foster – The University of British Columbia
Mr. Anthony Kiendl – Mackenzie Art Gallery
Ms. Hilda Nicholas – Kontinonhstats Mohawk Language Custodians Association (Ellen)
Mr. Jason Ryle – imagineNative Film + Media Arts Festival
Mr. Jeremy Emerson – Western Arctic Moving Pictures
Ms. Reaghan Tarbell – Kanien'keháka Onkwawén:na Raotitióhkwa Language and Cultural Center
Ms. Robin Delaronde – Kahnawake Education Center
Dr. Simon Bart – Concordia University
Link: www.abtec.org/iif
Mark K. Watson
Associate professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology
This Inusik (meaning 'Life') digital storytelling project works in collaboration with the Ivirtivik employment centre in Verdun and Montreal Inuit community members to facilitate storytelling and the sharing of voices and experiences.
Inusik helps to build a visual description of aspects of Inuit life in Montreal as well as the broader social contexts such as health and wellbeing, and internal aspects, such as hopes, fears, and visions. The project seeks to help to tell individual and social histories of Inuit in the city and show how some Inuit people experience, engage with and use the city. As many participants are youth, the project also shows how they see their place and future in the city.
Collaborators
Ivirtivik employment centre in Verdun; Cabot Square Project
Collaborating communities
Montreal Inuit
Monica E. Mulrennan
Associate professor, Geography, Planning and Environment
I have worked closely with the James Bay Cree community of Wemindji, northern Quebec, for more than twenty years on issues related to the identification of strategies for environmental protection that respond to locally-defined priorities. These include protecting lands, waters, and resources that support traditional activities and contribute to personal and community well-being; and enhancing community control by establishing a regime of protection that builds on existing Cree institutions of knowledge and environmental stewardship. A key strategy in this has been the creation of community-defined protected areas; including the Paakumshumwaau-Maatuskaau Biodiversity Reserve, an area of 4500 km sq (representing about one fifth of Wemindji's territory) and a proposal to establish the Tawich (Marine) Conservation Area in an area of 20,000 km sq. in the adjacent offshore.
Collaborating communities
The Cree Nation of Wemindji is a community of about 1400 people located on the central east coast of James Bay. It is one of ten communities in Eeyou Istchee (James Bay).
My research relationship, and that of my graduate students, is defined by three core principles of community-based participatory research (CBPR): 1) community-defined research agenda; 2) collaborative research process; and 3) meaningful research outcomes.
Collaborators
Rodney Mark (Deputy Grand Chief, Grand Council of the Crees of Eeyou Istchee); Dennis Georgekish (Chief, Wemindji First Nation); members of the Wemindji First Nation; graduate student members of the Indigenous Resource Management Research Group; Colin Scott (Director of the McGill-based Center of Indigenous Conservation and Development Alternatives - CICADA); members of the Wemindji Protected Areas Project
Links
http://irmlab.weebly.com/
http://cicada.world/
Felice Yuen
Associate professor, Department of Applied Human Sciences
Using arts-based methods (i.e., body mapping, poetry, collage), this project examines Indigenous women's experiences of healing.
In addition to publishing and presenting in numerous academic contexts, the body maps have traveled to a variety of places in Ontario and Quebec. We are in the midst of creating a facilitators guide for the body mapping process.
Collaborators
Minwaashin Lodge
Lucy Lu (Art therapist at Minwaashin Lodge)
Aboriginal women
Related links
https://sites.google.com/site/journeywomenminwaashin/home
Lu, L.*, & Yuen, F. (2012). Journey Women: Art Therapy in a Decolonizing Framework of Practice. Arts in Psychotherapy: Special issue on Social Justice, 39(2), 192-200.
Sjollema, S., & Yuen, F. (in press). Evocative words and ethical crafting: Poetic representation in leisure research. Leisure Sciences.
Yuen, F. (in press). Collage: An arts-based method for analysis, representation, and social justice. Journal of Leisure Research.
Lorna Roth
Professor, Communication Studies
Media infrastructure studies. A re-examination of the phases of First Peoples' media development in Canada focused on a comparison of initial and present infrastructural gaps. The work shows the parallel patterns of infrastructural challenges and documents the ways in which critical communication gaps have spurred various kinds of technical bypasses to enable media accessibility to First Peoples who have been ignored as technology users in the past.
Collaborating communities
N/A
Collaborators
Igloolik Isuma productions executive was generous in their co-operation for this research project - Zack Kunuk and Norman Cohen, in particular.
Links
Roth, Lorna. 2013. “Canadian First Peoples’ Mediascapes: (Re)framing a Snapshot with Three Corners,” in Leslie Shade (ed.). Mediascapes. Toronto: Thomson, pp. 364 – 389. Peer-Reviewed.
Roth, Lorna. 2007. “(re)Colouring the Public Broadcasting System in Canada: A Case Study of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network,” in Fuller, Linda K. (ed.) Community Media: International Perspectives (Aboriginal/ Indigenous Experiences, Current Case Studies, Virtual Community Visions). London: Sage Publications.
Roth, Lorna. 2005. (Revised and republished). “First Peoples’ Television in Canada’s North: A Case Study of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network,” in Mediascapes: New Patterns in Canadian Communication. Attallah, Paul and Leslie Shade (eds.). Toronto: Nelson Thomson Learning. Original Publication in 2002.
Roth, Lorna. 2005. (Revised and republished). “First Peoples’ Television in Canada’s North: A Case Study of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network,” in Mediascapes: New Patterns in Canadian Communication. Attallah, Paul and Leslie Shade (eds.). Toronto: Nelson Thomson Learning. Original Publication in 2002.
Mark K. Watson
Associate professor
Sociology and Anthropology
My Nunalijjuaq project is a 5 year community driven action research project funded by a SSHRC Insight grant. Its main aim is to help facilitate community-driven projects or ‘actions’ which seek to improve the wellbeing and social situation of Inuit in Montreal. At the same time, it seeks to improve our understanding of the dynamics of Inuit mobility within the context of an ever-increasing number of Inuit living in southern cities. Beyond the territorial borders of the four northern settlement regions in Canada, Inuit migration to southern cities such as Montreal represents one of the most complex and yet least understood aspects of Inuit society and politics moving forward in the 21st century. Set against this backdrop, this project both addresses, and acts in response to, the issues affecting Inuit in Montreal ranging from collective well-being and the continuity of cultural practice to the adequacy of frontline services and representative governance in cities.
Collaborators
Donna Patrick (Carleton University); Christopher Fletcher (Laval); Heather Igloliorte; Nobuhiro Kishigami (National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan). Community Partners include (but not limited to): Makivik Corporation, Avataq Cultural Institute, Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services, Chez Doris, Tungasuvvingat Inuit, Association of Montreal Inuit, CKUT90.3FM, Inuit Youth Council, Ivirtivik (Inuit employment centre in Verdun)
Collaborating communities
Mark works in collaboration with Inuit in Montreal and other southern cities (including Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Halifax, St. John's) as well as in several communities in Nunavik.
Related links
http://nunalijjuaq.edublogs.org/
https://soundcloud.com/nipivut
https://www.facebook.com/nipivut/
Elizabeth Dianna Fast
Assistant professor, Applied Human Sciences
A performative workshop was offered to participants of the annual Qualitative Inquiry Conference in Champaign, Illinois in May 2016. This workshop will be repeated on a yearly basis. Members of the Indigenous Inquiries Circle created vignettes in order to demonstrate the four Rs of decolonizing and co-determining performance practices: relationality, reciprocity, respect and responsibility. Storytelling and dialogic and monologue scenes were also used to engage the participants in multiple ways of understanding Indigenous research ethics and community engagement and participation.
Collaborating communities
N/A
Collaborators
Shawn Wilson, Margaret Kovach, Roe Burbar, Warren Linds, Virginie Magnat
Daniel Salée
Professor, School of Community and Public Affairs
Research network subsidized by FRQSC based on co-construction of knowledge aimed at building bridges between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities in Quebec and Canada
Collaborating communities
DIALOG
Assemblée des Premières Nations du Québec et Labrador,
Femmes autochtones au Québec,
Regroupemet québécois des centres d'amitié autochtones
Collaborators
Dr. Carole Lévesque, INRS-ucs, (Principal Investigator)
Dr. Caroline Desbiens, Laval University
Dr. Nathalie Kermoal, University of Alberta
Dr. Jean Leclair, Université de Montréal
Dr. Martin Papillon, Université de Montréal
Including more than 10 other co-investigarors and collaborators
Elizabeth Dianna Fast
Assistant professor, Applied Human Sciences
Scholarly debates have tended to focus on the legal and historical aspects of being Métis, leaving aside questions of personal and familial identities. These debates have also by and large focused on defined communities of Métis peoples west of Québec.
This research will address this gap by answering the question: how do families in Québec with mixed Indigenous ancestry express and understand their cultural identity(ies)? The methodology will include intergenerational storytelling (grandparents, parents and youth) that have mixed ancestry and who may or may not identify as “Métis”. The research will bring awareness to the histories of Métis peoples in Québec and will provide an understanding of the intergenerational transmission of Métis identities and cultural teachings (or lack thereof) for M(m)étis in Québec.
Collaborating communities
M(m)étis in Québec, advisory committee comprised of M(m)étis youth, adults and an elder who identify as M(m)étis from Québec.
Collaborators
Catherine Richardson (University of Montreal), Jeannine Carrière (University of Victoria), Suzanne Keeptwo.
Felice Yuen
Associate professor, Department of Applied Human Sciences
Through CIHR funded projects, we have been working with youth in this community to build leadership capacity, understand youth's conceptions of health and well-being, and to build youth-serving professionals’ capacity to respond to suicidal concerns.
Collaborating communities
Pasqua First Nation
Collaborators
Drs. Jo-Ann Episkenew, Warren Linds, Patti Ranahan, Linda Goulet, Karen Schmidt, Heather Ritenburg
Related links
Yuen, F., Linds, W., Goulet, L., Episkenew, J., Ritenburg, H., & Schmidt, K.* (2013). “You might as well call it Planet of the Sioux”: Indigenous Youth, Imagination, and Decolonization. Pimatisiwin, 11(2), 269-281.
Linds, W., Yuen, F., Goulet, L., Episkenew, J., & Schmidt, K.* (2010). Exploring and re-creating Indigenous identity though theatre-based workshops. In D. Chappell (ed.), Children under construction: Critical essays on play as curriculum (pp. 41-62). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
Louellyn White
Associate professor, First Peoples Studies program
Associate professor, School of Community and Public Affairs
My chapter on "White Power: Performing Assimilation. Lincoln Institute and Carlisle Indian School” will be published with the University of Nebraska Press in Fall 2016. As a direct descendant of previous Carlisle students, I am the founder and spokesperson for the Carlisle Indian School Farmhouse Coalition and am actively involved in the preservation of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School Farmhouse and the development of a Carlisle Indian School Heritage Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Collaborating communities
Indigenous communities and individuals across the U.S. and some in Canada who have/are descendants of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, PA, USA.
Collaborator
FQRSC
Monica E. Mulrennan
Associate professor, Geography, Planning and Environment
I have worked with Indigenous Torres Strait Islanders in northern Australia since the early 1990s, initially in my capacity as Research Coordinator of the Torres Strait Marine Conservation Strategy. In more recent years I have worked closely with Erubam Le on the small island of Erub in the northeastern part of Torres Strait. This work has focused on the documentation of Islander knowledge, local institutions of land and sea tenure and management, local harvesting practices, adaptations to change, and placenames, stories, and personal attachments to land and sea. This work has contributed directly to the requirements Islanders have had to meet for successful Native Title determinations on their land and sea territories.
Ongoing research with Erubam Le is directed to identifying strategies for environmental protection that recognise and enhance Islander authority and strengthen their capacity, particularly in marine conservation and fisheries management decisions.
Collaborating communities
Torres Strait Islanders inhabit the islands of Torres Strait, the waterway between Australia's Cape York Peninsula and Papua New Guinea. They are a distinct indigenous group of Melanesian origin whose identity is strongly tied to the sea. The community of Erub (also known as Darnley Island), is located in the eastern Torres Strait at the northernmost tip of the Great Barrier Reef, and has a population of about 400 people.
Collaborators
Kenny Bedford (Erub Board Member, Torres Strait Regional Authority); Joseph Elu (Chairman, Torres strait Regional Authority; members of the Erub community; graduate student members of the Indigenous Resource Management Research Group; Colin Scott (Director of the McGill-based Center of Indigenous Conservation and Development Alternatives - CICADA)
Links
http://irmlab.weebly.com/
http://cicada.world/
Our past community-based projects
Elizabeth Dianna Fast
Assistant professor, Applied Human Sciences
Every year, the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal gets dozens of requests to participate in research projects and educational outreach initiatives from students and community organizations alike. As a result of an increase in these requests and a concern for protecting the privacy of the residents, some of the board members initiated a committee to develop a research submission process. Drawing on examples from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities and organizations, we attempted to create a process that would make researchers accountable to the community, and that would draw from Indigenous methodologies (Kovach, 2009; Wilson, 2008).
Collaborating community
Native Women's Shelter of Montreal
Collaborator
Native Women's Shelter of Montreal
Elizabeth Dianna Fast
Assistant professor, Applied Human Sciences
As part of an ongoing strategy to improve relationships between the Montreal police (SPVM) and the urban Aboriginal community, a training manual was created to be a first step in providing mandatory training for the Montreal police. As an active member of the urban Aboriginal community, I was asked to create this manual and provided the majority of its content.
Collaborating communities
Cabot Square Project and the Montreal Urban Aboriginal Strategy Network
Collaborators
Nakuset Shapiro, Vicki Boldo, Stephan Puskas, Racheal Deutsh
Related link
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/aboriginal-community-reaches-historic-agreement-with-montreal-police-1.3126705
Karl S. Hele
Associate professor, First Peoples Studies program
EIC
Workshop and Conference held in Sault Ste. Marie with invited speakers to discuss Indigenous history and engage with community people - 200 plus participants
Play workshops
These centred around the history of the Hiawatha Pageant/Play and the history of the Robinson-Huron Treaty of 1850. Workshop was designed to familiarize student actors with the history, meaning, and interpretations of the records both print and visual.
Collaborating communities
Engaging Indigenous Communities (EIC) - conference, 2010
Play workshops
Collaborator
Garden River Community Trust
Lorna Roth
Professor, Communication Studies
Teacher Training Programs - Université du Quebec à Chicoutimi, Jonquière, McGill Universities. Cree School Board. From 1979-1991. Visited and did a variety of training courses in all English-speaking communities in Quebec - North & South. Subjects: Communications - Media Studies, The Pedagogy of Play, Teaching Methods, Preparation of Pedagogical Materials. Supervision of Teachers.
Trained the first Cree female school principal in Wabbanutao (Eastman), 1981-1982.
Collaborating communities
All of the English-speaking First Nations Communities in Quebec.
Collaborators
Cree School Board and other university teacher training institutions. See above for list.
Our past research projects
Lorna Roth
Professor, Communication Studies
I worked as a team member with the IBC Children's television development team (1986-87). I was their audience researcher — we travelled together to 3 representative communities across the North as a team to do program development interviews, production of 3 pilot programs, and testing of childrens' reactions. Program went on air in 1987 and is still currently being carried on Aboriginal Peoples' Television Network.
I also worked as a policy consultant, first Program Director and Trainer for Radio Kahnawake, 1979 – 1992 and as a Trainer for Kanehsatake Radio, 1990.
Collaborating communities
Communities in Nunavut, Northern Quebec, & Labrador involved with the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation
Kahnawake & Kanehsakate.
Collaborators
Members of the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation - Children's Television Service team
Conway Jocks - Radio Kahnawake
Marie David & Bev Nelson - Radio Kanehsatake
Related links
Takuginai (Look Here)
http://www.nac.nu.ca/programming_e.htm
http://aptn.ca/takuginai/