PhD Oral Exam - Salma Elhankouri, Humanities

When studying for a doctoral degree (PhD), candidates submit a thesis that provides a critical review of the current state of knowledge of the thesis subject as well as the student’s own contributions to the subject. The distinguishing criterion of doctoral graduate research is a significant and original contribution to knowledge.

Once accepted, the candidate presents the thesis orally. This oral exam is open to the public.

Abstract

Inspired by Chadwick Allen’s trans-Indigenous method of analyzing Native American and Maori literary texts and artworks (2012), I transpose this framework to understanding Indigenous transgressions of the Montreal settler art scene (Quebec context, Canada) of the 2020s and restoring epistemological flow in Indigenous art practice, identity, and land relations. Furthermore, I let the trans-Indigenous carry decoloniality in practice, just like canoe carries Indigenous epistemology in movement (Cole, P., 2006): by situating the locus of analysis in global Indigenous subjectivities, and generating meaning-making between Indigenous locales (i.e., First Nations, Yoreme, Metis, Afro-Caribbean, and North African Amazigh) that are rooted in Montreal – i.e., a historically significant island of connections, ruptures, solitudes, and movements. As an Amazigh researcher collaborating with First Nations, Yoreme, and Afro-Indigenous artists from multidisciplinary art traditions, I present a trans-Indigenous collection of dialogues between artists, academics, global land-based Indigenous epistemologies (tree, water, canoe, rock, and archipelago), and transgressions that inform how global Indigenous academics and artists that are reunited in Tiohtià:ke island articulate Indigenous sovereignty and identity revitalization, and transform memorial silences and deaths into presence, and enact a local trans-Indigenous discourse on contemporary relational practice in the Canadian context, specifically Quebec, with substantial global echoes.