Research Affiliates
RCMR Affiliates are individuals interested in participating in the Centre's activities, and whose scholarship aligns with RCMR research areas and mission.
Our five principal research areas are:
- Historical research and Métis rights
- Institutional deficit in Métis education
- Land use and resources
- Contemporary Métis issues
- Research and analysis capacity on current topics and general policy areas
2021 Affiliates
sherry.farrell-racette@uregina.ca
306-585-5515
Associate Professor, Visual Arts
Faculty of Media, Art, and Performance, University of Regina
Sherry Farrell Racette (Metis/Algonquin/Irish) is an interdisciplinary scholar with an active arts and curatorial practice. She was born in Manitoba and is a member of Timiskaming First Nation in Quebec (unceded Algonquin territory). Her principal areas of interest are Metis women’s history and visual culture, Indigenous photography, traditional media in contemporary Indigenous art, and visual storytelling. Curatorial and artistic projects include We Are Not Birds (Canadian Museum for Human Rights, 2014), From Here: Story Gatherings from the Qu’Appelle Valley (Gabriel Dumont Institute, 2015), An Eloquence of Women (solo exhibition, Wanuskewin, 2018), and the forthcoming Kwaata-nihtaawakihk: a Hard Birth, Manitoba 1870 at the Winnipeg Art Gallery (2020) and Racial Stitch at the MacKenzie Art Gallery (2020). Farrell Racette has illustrated eight children's books, collaborating with some of Canada's most noted Indigenous authors. Beadwork and stitch-based work is increasingly important to her artistic practice, creative research and pedagogy. She was the inaugural Ann Ray Fellow at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe NM in 2009-2010, and the 2016-2017 Distinguished Visiting Indigenous Faculty Fellow at the Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto.
c.fiola@uwinnipeg.ca
(204)470-0222
Associate Professor
University of Winnipeg
Chantal Fiola is Michif (Red River Métis) with family from St. Laurent and Ste. Geneviève, MB. She is the author of Rekindling the Sacred Fire: Métis Ancestry and Anishinaabe Spirituality, which won her the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer and the Beatrice Mosionier Aboriginal Writer of the Year Award. Returning to Ceremony: Spirituality in Manitoba Métis Communities, released in fall 2021 (University of Manitoba Press), is her follow-up book. Dr. Fiola was named Distinguished Indigenous Scholar’s Chair in 2021(-2024) by the University of Winnipeg (UW). She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Urban and Inner-City Studies at UW where she researches, publishes, and teaches in the areas of Métis (and selected First Nations) identity, culture, spirituality, history, sexuality, sovereignty, and methodologies. Chantal is two-spirit, Midewiwin, a Sundancer, and lives with her wife and their daughter in Winnipeg.
gabelc@mcmaster.ca
905-870-9487
Associate Professor - Department of Health, Aging and Society/Indigenous Studies
McMaster University
Dr. Gabel is Red River Métis, from Rivers, Manitoba and holds a Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Well-Being, Community-Engagement and Innovation. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health, Aging and Society and the Indigenous Studies Program. Dr. Gabel has also developed a strong program of research that examines the importance of strengthening intergenerational relationships in Indigenous communities and its impact on health and well-being through the use of digital technology and arts-based research. She holds a SSHRC Insight Grant that gains insight into the ways in which Métis elders, adults and youth living in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta understand their identity and to explore the nature of contact and communication between these three generations. The key goal is to learn how such intergenerational relationships shape Métis identity, how they relate to the overall health and well-being of Métis peoples in a contemporary context and shed some light on where Métis peoples may be headed in the future. This project uses a community-engaged research approach and the digital storytelling method to address these important issues.
rola@uvic.ca
250-472-4231
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology, University of Victoria
Rob Hancock is Cree-Metis from Treaty 8 territory on his mother's side, from the Monkman family, and English-Canadian on his father's. He was born and raised, and is grateful to be living and working, in lək̓ʷəŋən territory. He earned a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies, with a focus on anthropology and history, from the University of Victoria, and held postdoctoral fellowships in First Nations Studies at the University of Western Ontario and in Anthropology at UVic. Rob is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Associate Director Academic in the Office of Indigenous Academic and Community Engagement at UVic.
kdking@ualberta.ca
780-237-5683
Assistant Teaching Professor - Ph.D. Student
University of Alberta - Faculty of Nursing
Keith is Métis and Russian settler on his mother's side, and English settler on his father's side, being born in Peace River, Alberta, and currently living and working in Edmonton as a Registered Nurse and Assistant Teaching Professor in the Faculty of Nursing. With a BScN and MPH in epidemiology, Keith's research interests include sexual and mental health, through a Métis intersectional lens.
david.parent@umanitoba.ca
204-880-2117
Assistant Professor
University of Manitoba, Departments of Indigenous Studies and History
David Parent is Metis and his family, the Monkmans, are from the historic community of Minnewaken, located in Manitoba’s Interlake region. David is currently an assistant professor in the Departments of Native Studies and History at the University of Manitoba.
daniel.voth@ucalgary.ca
4032204490
Associate Professor
University of Calgary
Daniel Voth is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Calgary, and the Director of the International Indigenous Studies Program. He is Métis from the Métis Nation of the Red River Valley. Raised in Winnipeg’s inner city, Daniel earned his BA Honours from the University of Winnipeg in 2007, and his PhD from UBC in 2015. His research agenda focuses on the political relationships between Indigenous peoples, particularly in southern Manitoba. His work also examines new pathways to gendered empowerment in Indigenous governance. His research has been published in the Canadian Journal of Political Science, the University of Toronto Law Journal, Native American and Indigenous Studies, Canadian Journal of Urban Research, and in several book chapters.
2019–2020 Affiliates
jennifer.adese@utoronto.ca
416-427-1755
Dr. Jennifer Adese is otipemisiwak/Métis. Her Métis family comes from Edmonton, Athabasca, St. Albert, and Duffield. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Prior to joining UTM in 2018, she was Associate Professor and Program Coordinator of Indigenous Studies in the School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies at Carleton University. Dr. Adese holds a PhD in English (Cultural Studies stream) from McMaster University (2012) and an MA in Cultural Studies and Critical Theory (CSCT) from McMaster.
kdesjarlaisdeklerk@mhc.ab.ca
403-702-5550
Dr. Kristen Desjarlais-deKlerk is a Metis research and education in Medicine Hat. She has a doctorate in sociology from the University of Calgary where she studied homelessness, housing, health, and identity. Her current work focuses on decolonization of identity and the ways in which Metis people negotiate Metis identity in their day to day lives. Alongside this, she has extensively studied poverty and homelessness and has examined the ways in which social support changes during major life events.
Marilyn’s first collection, A Really Good Brown Girl, won the 1997 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. This collection is now in its fifteenth printing and has been reprinted as a Brick Books classic with a forward by Lee Maracle. Her second collection, green girl dreams Mountains, won the 2001 Stephan G. Stephansson Award from the Writer’s Guild of Alberta. Her third collection, that tongued belonging, was awarded the 2007 Anskohk Aboriginal Poetry Book of the Year and the McNally Robinson Aboriginal Book of the Year. The Pemmican Eaters, her fourth collection, won the 2015 Stephan G. Stephansson Award. Marilyn has been the Writer-in-Residence at the Edmonton Public Library, the University of Alberta, the University of Toronto-Massey College, Windsor University, Brandon University and Grant MacEwan. She has also been faculty in Literary Arts and the Aboriginal Emerging Writers Program at the Banff Centre. She is Associate professor at the University of Alberta in the Faculties of Arts and Native Studies
pgareau@ualberta.ca
780-492-2116
Paul Gareau is Métis and French Canadian. He is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Native Studies and former fellow for the Rupertsland Centre for Métis Research (RCMR) at the University of Alberta, Canada. He is also the academic lead for the Indigenous Canada Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). His research, academic publications, and community research projects explore the influence of Catholicism on early and late modern identity, the legacy of colonial discourses on Indigenous and ethno-cultural minorities, and the multiplicity of experience in rural spaces. His research focuses on the Métis, Indigenous religiosity, kinship youth, gender, la francophonie, and rural Canada.
cgaudet@ualberta.ca
780-465-8715
Dr. Janice Cindy Gaudet is a Métis researcher and educator from a farming community in Saskatchewan. In 2017, she joined the University of Alberta as an associate professor at Campus Saint-Jean. She is committed to a de-colonial approach in research, wellbeing and pedagogy by centering Indigenous knowledge.
Dr. Gaudet completed her PhD at the University of Ottawa, Faculty Health Sciences. Her research with Moose Cree First Nation in Moose Factory, Ontario, focused on land-based initiatives for Omushkego youth wellbeing and its correlation to living and being well. Her doctoral work inspired her research interest to learn about land-based wellness practices and perspectives from and with Métis women in Saskatchewan and Alberta.
adam.gaudry@ualberta.ca
780-492-0032
Adam Gaudry, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor and Associate Dean (Research & Graduate Studies) in the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta. He is Métis and his family is from the Lake-of-the-Woods in Northwestern Ontario. He grew up near Hamilton.
Adam has diverse research interests and he is currently working on several different projects. He is writing a book on nineteenth-century Métis political thought and the Métis-Canada, co-leading a large collaborative and community-driven research partnership to build a Teetł'it Gwich'in bush school in Teetł'it Zheh, NWT.
He has also published extensively on Métis identity, Indigenous research methodologies, and indigenization policy in Canadian post-secondary education. To learn more about Adam's work and publications see his Faculty Profile Page.
brenda.gunn@umanitoba.ca
204-272-1667
Brenda L. Gunn has a B.A. from the University of Manitoba and a J.D. from the University of Toronto. She completed her LL.M. in Indigenous Peoples Law & Policy at the University of Arizona. Brenda worked at a community legal clinic in Rabinal, Guatemala on a case of genocide submitted to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights. She has also worked with First Nations on Aboriginal and treaty rights issues in Manitoba. As a proud Metis woman, she continues to combine her academic research with her activism pushing for greater recognition of Indigenous peoples’ inherent rights as determined by Indigenous peoples’ own legal traditions. Her current research focuses on promoting greater conformity between international law on the rights of Indigenous peoples and domestic law. She developed a handbook on understanding and implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that is quickly becoming one of the main resources in Canada on the UN Declaration (http://www.indigenousbar.ca/pdf/undrip_handbook.pdf) and has delivered workshops on the Declaration across Canada and internationally. She also researches in the area of Metis people and Canadian law.
darryl.leroux@smu.ca
902-420-5879
Darryl Leroux (French-Canadian) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Justice and Community Studies at Saint Mary’s University in Kjipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia). His book, Distorted Descent: White Claims to Indigenous Identity, examines the issue of self-indigenization among white French-descendants in New England and the Canadian provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. His other work on the topic has been published in aboriginal policy studies, Social Studies of Science, Journal of Critical Ethnic Studies, and TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies.
tricia.logan@ubc.ca
604-822-9921
Tricia Logan is the head of Research and Engagement at the Residential School History and Dialogue Centre and is cross-appointed as an Assistant Professor at the UBC School of lnformation. Tricia is a Métis scholar with more than 20 years of experience working with Indigenous communities in Canada. She joined the Centre in January 2019, and has held roles at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, the Métis Centre at the National Aboriginal Health Organization, the Aboriginal Healing Foundation and the Legacy of Hope Foundation. She has a Master of Arts in Native Studies from the University of Manitoba, and completed her PhD in History at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her PhD is entitled Indian Residential Schools, Settler Colonialism and Their Narratives in Canadian History. Originally from Kakabeka Falls, Ontario, Tricia has worked with Survivors of residential schools, completed research on the Métis experience in residential schools, and worked with Métis communities on a Michif language revitalization project.
yppratt@ucalgary.ca
403-220-6116
Yvonne Poitras Pratt, PhD, is a Métis scholar whose family ancestry traces to the historic Red River Settlement and the contemporary Fishing Lake Métis Settlement. She is an Associate Professor and Director, Indigenous Education at the Werklund School of Education, at the University of Calgary. Her research interests focus on the use of digital storytelling as a means to revitalize oral traditions and foster intergenerational learning within Métis communities.
Yvonne has published in the realm of social justice, Métis studies, reconciliatory pedagogy, service-learning, and the integration of arts in education and was recently awarded the Confederation of Alberta Faculty Associations (CAFA) Distinguished Academic Early Career Award (2018).
allyson.stevenson@usask.ca
306-966-6211
Allyson Stevenson is Métis scholar from Kinistino, SK, who was raised in Regina, SK. She is a Faculty member at the University of Saskatchewan, Department of Indigenous Studies and is the Gabriel Dumont Institute Research Chair in Métis Studies.
She obtained her PhD in History from the University of Saskatchewan in 2015. Her dissertation examined the emergence of the Sixties Scoop in Saskatchewan, with a particular focus on the experiences of the Métis people. From 2016-2017 she was the inaugural Aboriginal postdoctoral fellow at the University of Guelph where she worked on developing a historical analysis of Indigenous women’s political organizing in Saskatchewan during the 1970’s.
In January 2018, she began a tenure-track position at the University of Regina in the department of Politics and International Studies. Her current research specializes in Indigenous women's political activism and organizations, 20th century Métis political history, gender and kinship. Her book, Intimate Integration: The Sixties Scoop in Saskatchewan and the Colonization of Indigenous Kinship is forthcoming with the University of Toronto Press.
kisha.supernant@ualberta.ca
780-492-7345
Dr. Kisha Supernant is Métis and an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alberta. An award-winning teacher, researcher, and writer, her research interests include the relationship between cultural identities, landscapes, and the use of space, Métis archaeology, and heart-centered archaeological practice. Her research with Indigenous communities in western Canada explores how archaeologists and communities can build collaborative research relationships.
She is the Director of the Exploring Métis Identity Through Archaeology (EMITA), a co-director of a new interdisciplinary research project on Métis Kinscapes of Lac Ste Anne, Alberta, and a co-investigator on Cartographies of Deep Time, a recently funded SSHRC Insight Grant project that explores the complexities of history and different ways of knowing with Tsimshian communities in British Columbia.
dvermette@ualberta.ca
780-248-1932
A member of the Métis Nation, D'Arcy has written on Aboriginal rights, Métis history and rights, as well as education. D'Arcy has extensive administrative and curriculum development experience serving as both Associate Dean (Research) and Director, Native Studies Program (St. Thomas University).