Postdoctoral Fellows

Keith Cherry

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Dr. Keith Cherry

About

Keith Cherry is a settler academic and activist living on unceded Lekwungen territories. Keith is currently a Killam Postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alberta, a graduate fellow at the University of Victoria’s Central for Global Studies, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alberta’s Centre for Constitutional Studies, and a fellow at the Cedar Trees Institute.

Keith’s interdisciplinary research blends political science, law, economics and political philosophy. His research interests include legal pluralism, decolonization, and agonistic politics with a focus on Canada and the European Union. Keith’s PhD dissertation offered a comparative analysis of pluralism in Canada and the European Union, and is currently under revision for publication as a book. Keith's postdoctoral research focuses on grassroots conceptions of pluralism, asking activists who participated in blockades in support of the Wet'suwet'en in 2020 how they are thinking about decolonization, pluralism, and 'reconciliation'.

Keith has taught multiple courses concerning European integration, law, legal ethics and settler colonialism, and has published on European, Canadian and transnational politics. Keith is also active in non-violent direct action in support of Indigenous sovereignty and climate justice.

Keith's Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Postdoctoral Fellowship is supervised by Professor George Pavlich of the University of Alberta and Assistant Professor Joshua Nichols of McGill University.

Research

  • Pluralism

  • Agonism

  • Decolonization

Rebeca Macias Gimenez

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Rebeca Macias

About

Rebeca Macias Gimenez holds a PhD from the University of Victoria Faculty of Law, an LLM by the University of Calgary, and a Bachelor of Law by the University Federal of Minas Gerais (Brazil). She was a Visiting Scholar at the Canadian Institute of Resources Law, Calgary and a Partner Attorney at Freire, Lagrotta & Gimenez Law Firm (Brazil), specializing in Environmental Law and Energy. Rebeca has participated in various research projects and publications during her doctoral program and has been a teaching assistant and a sessional instructor in UVic programs. During her PhD, she was awarded the Law Foundation of BC fellowship, the Centre for International Governance Innovation scholarship, the UVic Centre for Global Studies fellowship, the UVic Graduate Student Teaching Fellowships in Legal Process, and the Real Estate Foundation Fund for Environmental Law and Policy through her work with her doctoral supervisor, Professor Deborah Curran. She is currently a Grant Notley Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Alberta Faculty of Law, under the supervision of Professors Hadley Friedland and Joshua Nichols, and a fellow at the Cedar Trees Institute.

Her doctoral dissertation focused on the decision-making processes about infrastructure projects that affect traditional Indigenous territories, Indigenous ways of life, and their relationships within and across communities. Rebeca used a comparative case study method, analysing the processes of two hydropower dams in British Columbia (Site C dam) and Brazil (Belo Monte dam) to explore those issues. Through her postdoctoral research, she examines the experiences of Indigenous people in affirming jurisdiction over their traditional territories and interacting with the colonial governments. More specifically, she analyses the legal principles that guide a particular Dunne-zaa and Cree community on Treaty 8 territory, Northern BC. This analysis will flesh out legal obligations, based on their legal orders, and the relationships that shape how that Indigenous community makes decisions about land and natural resources and how they interact with colonial governments. This is especially relevant considering the recent enactment of the BC Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) and the expectation of Canada implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

Research

  • Transsystemic environmental law

  • Indigenous peoples and rights

  • Energy and infrastructure projects