Vicki Chartrand

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Teaching

  • SOC 2510 - Criminology
  • SOC 2610 - Sociology of Criminal Justice and Corrections 
  • SOC 3740 - Selected Topics: Racial Justice
     

Biography

Vicki Chartrand is a Mama and Assistant Professor in the Sociology and Criminology Department at the University of Manitoba and Adjunct Professor at the University of Ottawa, Criminology Department. She is the founder and Director of the Centre for Justice Exchange – a research centre for collaborative community justices at Bishop’s University. Her research includes mapping carceral and colonial intersections, unearthing community-based and collaborative justices, and advancing community-engaged scholarship. She has over two decades of experience working with women and children, Indigenous communities, and people in prison. 
 

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Dr. Chartrand is the principal investigator of the Unearthing Justice Partnership project – an SSHRC-funded Race, Gender and Diversity Initiative grant to map Indigenous-based grassroots for the MMIWG2S+ people. This work builds on her FRQ-SC research grant that documents over 500+ Indigenous grassroots initiatives and activities concerning the murders and disappearances, and that resulted in a publicly shared resource collection available at Unearthing Justices.

She has also received several grants to trace the links between Indigenous incarceration and modern and current forms of colonialism. For this research, she has given expert reports and testimonies for legal cases, parliamentary and government studies, and a commission of inquiry in Quebec (Viens Commission). She collaborates with other national and international scholars in Australia, New Zealand, and the US who similarly research and document colonial and criminal justice intersections.

In her work, Dr. Chartrand seeks to rethink current criminal justice arrangements and explore alternative justices and forms of accountability based on anti-carceral and anti-colonial approaches. Dr. Chartrand works closely with academics, students, stakeholders, coalitions, organizations, collectives, and people from prison to raise awareness around institutional and colonial forms of violence and to advance more inclusive and collaborative approaches to justice. 
 

Education

  • PhD (Sociology), Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, 2008
  • MA (Criminology), University of Ottawa, ON, 2002
  • BSSc Honours (Criminology), University of Ottawa, ON, 1999

Research

Research interests

  • Carceral studies 
  • Settler colonialism
  • MMIWG2S+ people
  • Community engaged scholarship
  • Abolitionism 

Research summary

Dr. Vicki Chartrand’s research reimagines justice by challenging traditional, punitive systems and exploring alternative, community-driven approaches. Her work maps the intersections of carceral and colonial violence, particularly focusing on Indigenous communities and their grassroots initiatives. Through projects like the SSHRC-funded Unearthing Justice Partnership, Dr. Chartrand highlights the radical possibilities that already exist within communities, advocating for justice practices rooted in anti-colonial and anti-carceral principles. Collaborating with scholars and practitioners internationally, she aims to transform how we understand and enact justice, promoting community-engaged solutions.

Research affiliations/groups

Selected publications

Books

  • Chartrand, V. & Savarese, J. (Eds.) (2023). Unsettling Colonialism in the Canadian Criminal Justice System. Edmonton: Athabasca University. 

Journal Issues

  • Chartrand, V. (Ed.) (2023). Indigenous and racialized justice [Guest editor]. Canadian Criminal Justice Association Justice Actualités-Report, 37(3). 
  • Anthony, T., Chartrand, V., & McIntosh, T. (Eds.) (2022). Special issue: Anti-colonial abolitionism. Journal of Prisoners on Prison, 30(2). 

Journal Articles

  • Moore, H., Brandariz, J. A., Chartrand, V., Turnbull, S., Kilty, J. M., Sozzo, M., & Moore, D. (2024). Cultures of transparency in carceral governance: Lessons across the global north/south divide. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy. Incarceration
  • Anthony, T., Chartrand, V., & McIntosh, T. (2022). An Anti-colonial approach to abolition: Building intentional relations. Journal of Prisoners on Prison, 30(2), 3-9. 
  • Chartrand, V. (2022). Unearthing justices: Mapping 500+ Indigenous grassroots initiatives for missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and Two Spirit+ people. Decolonization of Criminology and Justice, 4(1), 7-30. 
  • Chartrand, V. (2019). Unsettled times: Indigenous incarceration and the links between colonialism and the penitentiary in Canada. Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 61(3), 67-89. 

Book Chapters

  • Anthony, T., Chartrand, V., & Van Styvendale, N. (Forthcoming). Three sisters: On the ontology of community-engaged scholarship. In S. Fabian, M. Felices-Luna & J. Kilty (Eds.), New Qualitative Methods. UBC Press. Co-author 33%. 
  • Chartrand, V. (2023). The quotidian violence of incarcerating Indigenous people in the Canadian state: Why reform is not an option for decolonization. In C. Cunneen, A. Deckert, A. Porter, J. Tauri, & R. Webb (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook on Decolonizing Justice (pp. 256-266). London: Routledge. 
  • Chartrand, V. (2022). Power and place: mapping Indigenous grassroots organizing and mobilizing for MMIWG2S+ people. In D. Silva & M. Deflam (Eds.), Diversity in Criminology and Criminal Justice Studies (pp. 83-98). UK: Emerald Publishing.

Awards

  • 2022-2024 - Research and Creative Activity Award,  Bishop’s University, Sherbrooke, QC
  • 2019-2020 - Evaluation Committee Merit Award, Bishop’s University, Sherbrooke, QC 
  • 2018-2019 - Social Sciences Divisional Teaching Award, Bishop’s University, Sherbrooke, QC

Outreach

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