University of Manitoba - Mamawipawin Research Space - Affiliates & Researchers

University of Manitoba - Mamawipawin Research Space - Affiliates & Researchers

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Affiliates & Researchers

Faculty Partners
		Kiera L. Ladner is Canada Research Chair in Miyo we'citowin, Indigenous Governance and Digital Sovereignties, and Professor in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Manitoba, as well as former Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Politics and Governance. Her research focuses on Indigenous Politics and Governance; Digital Sovereignties and Archiving (MMIW, PARSD, and CLIP); gender (diversities); women and governance; and resurgence (in terms of both women and youth). Dr. Ladner’s publications include This is an Honour Song: Twenty Years Since the Blockades (Arbeiter Ring Press) co-edited with Leanne Simpson, and Surviving Canada: Indigenous Peoples Celebrate 150 Years of Betrayal co-authored with Myra J. Tait, as well as numerous articles and book chapters on a wide variety of topics. Currently, Dr. Ladner is working on projects with Dr. Shawna Ferris on a community centred digital archive project which is compiling three archives (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls database, Post-Apology Indian Residential Schools Database, the Sex Work Database). She is also working on project on including the comparative constitutional law and Indigenous peoples project (CLIP project), a digital sovereignties and a comparative treaty project focussing on Anglo-settler societies.
		Shawna Ferris teaches and researches in the area of critical race studies, decolonization, sex work/prostitution studies, and violence against women, with an emphasis on representation and resistance. She is particularly interested in cultural representations of and responses to sex work/ers, as well as cultural marginalization, and raced classed and gendered violence resulting from the same. Her book, Street Sex Work and Canadian Cities: Resisting a Dangerous Order, was published in 2015 by University of Alberta Press. Her current research examines anti-violence, anti-racism, and decolonization-oriented activism stemming from the growing number of missing and murdered women in urban centres across Canada. As part of this research and in partnership with Mamawipawin Director Dr. Kiera Ladner (Political Studies and CRC, Indigenous Governance), she is working with a research team to develop three separate but related digital archives. Working titles for these archives are the Sex Work Database, the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Database, and the Post-apology Indian Residential School Database. Shawna is also involved in a research project with Sex Professionals of Canada Executive Director Amy Lebovitch. Together, they are examining in even more depth sex worker activism in Canada.
Postdoctoral Fellow
		Mariam Georgis is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Political Studies and Mamawipawin: Centre for Indigenous Governance and Community Based Research at the University of Manitoba. Originally an Assyrian Indigenous to what is today known as Iraq, she grew up on Anishinabek and Haudenosaunee territory. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Alberta, an MA and Hon. BA in Political Science from McMaster University. Her doctoral research explored the links between colonial intervention and violence in the international system, occupation and nation-building in post-2003 Iraq. Prior to undertaking her doctoral studies, Dr. Georgis worked as a settlement counsellor with Iraqi refugees displaced by the 2003 Anglo-American invasion and occupation of Iraq. Her work focuses on decolonial/postcolonial approaches to global politics, critical security studies, race and Indigeneity, colonial modernity, violence and nation building, and Middle East politics with a focus on Indigenous politics. Her current project, Assyrians: the remnants of colonial modernity in Iraq? offers a decolonial perspective on state-building and disrupts prevailing state-centric understandings of national self-determination and sovereignty, focusing on the north of Iraq. She is the co-author of “Violence on Iraqi bodies: decolonising economic sanctions in security studies” in Third World Quarterly and “(Re)inserting Race and Indigeneity and International Relations Theory: A Postcolonial Approach” in Global Change, Peace & Security. She has also contributed a chapter, “Nation and Identity Construction in Modern Iraq: (Re)inserting the Assyrians,” to an edited volume, Unsettling Colonial Modernity in Islamicate Contexts.
Doctoral Research Affiliates
		Carmen Miedema is a Nehiyaw woman and mother of four from the Peepeekisis Nation in Southern Saskatchewan. Carmen has worked for the last two years as a student research assistant at the NCTR, concentrating predominantly on the care of the Centre’s material object collections. Carmen holds a B.A. (Hons) in History and Anthropology from Brandon University; she is currently finishing her M.A. in Archival Studies at the University of Manitoba, and is entering into her Ph.D. program through the Native Studies department at the University of Manitoba in the fall of 2019. Her master’s thesis looks at the need for settler archives to build relationships with Indigenous communities, and how relationships have the potential to benefit not only the archives but also more importantly, the communities.
		Meagan Cloutier is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Calgary, studying gender and politics. She has completed her Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Studies at the University of Manitoba, with a focus in Indigenous governance and Canadian politics and her Master of Arts at the University of Calgary. Meagan has been a member of the Mamawipawin research team since 2015, conducting research related to the constitutional recognition and treaty process developments in Australia.
		Marcus Closen is a PhD Student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. He recently completed his master’s degree in political studies at the University of Manitoba, with a thesis entitled Unelected Upper Chambers in Commonwealth Parliaments. His research at the University of Toronto explores representation through constitutions and political institutions within the contexts of Canadian and comparative politics. He has been with Mamawipawin since 2018, and has engaged in research across several projects as well as fieldwork in Australia. Prior to joining Mamawipawin, Marcus worked in the Faculty of Arts Dean’s Office as communications support staff.
Reseachers
		Roxana Akhmetova completed her master’s degree in Political Studies in 2019 under the supervision of Dr. Kiera Ladner. Roxana’s master’s thesis focused on the role of recent newcomers to Canada in the reconciliation movement and on newcomer education about Indigenous peoples, their cultures, and histories. Roxana’s academic interests include exploring how newcomers to Canada can be better educated about Indigenous peoples and the reconciliation movement, as well as irregular migration across the Canada-U.S. border. In October 2019, Roxana will pursue M.Sc. in Migration Studies at the University of Oxford.
		Micheline Hughes is a member of the Cape Sable Island Wampanoag of the Sou'West Nova Métis Council. She is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Native Studies and a Research Fellow at St. John’s College. She has been a Research Assistant at Mamawipawin since 2015. Her doctoral work focuses on the power of stories and Mi’kmaw Catholicism.
		Alannah Mckay is an AnishinaabeKwe & Ininiwi Iskwew from Berens River Manitoba and Muskrat Dam Ontario, raised in Treaty 1 territory. Alannah is pursuing an advanced undergraduate degree majoring in Native Studies, minoring in Sociology and Criminology.
		Dane Monkman (Giizhebaabi Migizii) is a Cree and Anishinaabe individual and member of Peguis First Nation who was raised in the Canadian north on the Great Slave Lake and the lands of the Deh Cho Dene peoples. He is currently entering a Master of Arts program at the University of Manitoba in the department of Political Studies in the area of Indigenous governance and Treaties. He has been a member of Mamawipawin since 2018.

Administrative Support
		Kyla Shead provides administrative support to Mamawipawin and the work of the Canada Research Chair in Miyo we'citowin, Indigenous Governance and Digital Sovereignties. Kyla also works in the Women’s and Gender Studies and Labour Studies programs in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Manitoba.