Research Fellowship
Every fall semester RCMR awards a Research Fellowship to a scholar whose proposed research focuses on Métis specific research areas, and falls within RCMR's mandate. This grant supports independent research, builds research capacity, and advances Métis research. The successful scholar receives a grant in support of their proposed research and delivers a final report and presentation on their findings.
Congratulations Dr. Michelle Porter
2021-2022 RCMR Research Fellowship recipient
This Fellowship supports Dr. Porter with building a network of research relations that explore the links between Métis cultural renewal, the renewal of relationships with the home/land(s), and Métis connections to bison (across time and geography) and bison mobility and geographies.
For Porter, “The ways in which Métis and other people imagine and create the future is at the centre of reconciliation efforts today. My two main research questions are: 1. How do Métis lived experiences of homeland and relationships with the land and bison inform the return of bison to the land in the past, present, and future? and 2. How are Métis communities re-imagining their futures in the face of shifting connections to home, land, bison and identity?”
Dr. Gabrielle Legault, 2020–2021
Dr. Legault traces her Métis ancestry through her grandma Julia Fagnant and the historic Métis community of Lac Pelletier, Saskatchewan. Her research and teaching specializations are firmly rooted in Indigenous studies, with additional expertise in contemporary Métis peoples and perspectives in British Columbia, as well as collaborative Indigenous research methodologies. Gabrielle has worked on several interdisciplinary research collaborations with Métis organizations including Métis Nation British Columbia and is committed to continuing her work building bridges between communities, organizations, and ideas.
This fellowship goes towards supporting Phase 2 of a multi-year research project. The multi-year study explores the reconciliation of Métis-First Nation relationships through examining the history of inter-Indigenous Métis relations (including informal and formal agreements or treaties), the current state of Métis-First Nations relations in British Columbia (BC) and more broadly, and exploring potential recommendations for Métis peoples and organizations to reconcile these relations.
Katherine Boyer, 2019-2020
Katherine is a multidisciplinary artist whose work is focused on methods bound to textile arts and the handmade. Her art and research are entrenched in Métis history, material culture, and personal family narratives. Through the experience of long, slow, and considerate laborious processes, she contemplates the use of her own Métis body as a conduit for building upon ancestor relations and exploring notions of a mixed cultural identity.
Currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Manitoba, School of Art, she has a BFA from the University of Regina and an MFA at the University of Manitoba.
Katherine's research project entails seeking to identify the creative works of 19th and 20th century Métis Artists. The names and works of these artists will become the first entries into an online database more easily accessible to other researchers and artists.
Willow Lake Métis Community, 2018-2019
Willow Lake Métis (WLM) are a Métis community based in Anzac, Alberta. WLM are closely connected to the lands of northeastern Alberta, where they continue to hunt, trap, fish, and berry pick on the same traplines, rivers, lakes and trails that sustained their ancestors. The community is geographically situated at the north end of "SAGD alley," the wide strip of steam and solvent-based bitumen extraction projects between Fort McMurray and Cold Lake. The community's roots lie in the history of the fur trade in northeastern Alberta, and WLM is connected to other Métis families, communities, and political entities throughout western and northern Canada, and in the United States. The fellowship research proposed by WLM will document Métis women's indigenous and ecological knowledge, which is vital to the cultural retention objectives of the community and contributes to a general understanding of contemporary Métis life in Alberta. Read the final report on our publications page.
Dr. Kisha Supernant, 2017-2018
Our second Research Fellowship recipient is Dr. Kisha Supernant, from the University of Alberta's Department of Anthropology (Faculty of Arts). Dr. Supernant is Métis and an Associate Professor, and her proposed research for this grant will focus on spatial analysis of Métis movement in specific areas of Alberta (Lac Ste Anne, St. Alberta, and Fort Edmonton). This will result in a database of information including individuals, maps, and visualizations. Her research brings together historical GIS, archaeology, and archival research, and will be foundational in collecting this kind of information in a Métis context.
RCMR has had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Supernant at one of our Métis Talks back in October, 2016. She is also a member of the research team for the Métis Kinscapes Project and will be a great asset to RCMR this year.
Dr. Paul Gareau, 2016-2017
In 2016, RCMR launched a pilot run of the Research Fellowship grant which was awarded to Dr. Paul Gareau. Dr. Gareau is Métis and Fransaskois originally from Bellevue near Batoche, Saskatchewan. Dr. Gareau is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta. As a Religious Studies scholar, Dr. Gareau is interested in examining current misrepresentations of Métis views on religion and Indigenous identity. More specifically, Dr. Gareau's research will focus on Métis presence at the Catholic pilgrimage site of Lac Ste. Anne, Alberta. Dr. Gareau's study of Lac Ste. Anne aims to shed light on the historical and contemporary role of the Métis at pilgrimage sites, and how these sites remain a part of the broader, trans-border geography of the Métis Nation.
