Canada Research Chair in First Peoples' Intellectual Traditions and Self-Determination

Canada Research Chair in First Peoples' Intellectual Traditions and Self-Determination's work focuses on First Peoples' perspectives on the multi-dimensional effects of genocide and colonialism today and on the continuity and expansion of oral and intellectual traditions as an alternative to lived colonial realities and as a source of social transformation. The Research Chair consists of four units:

  • Documentation & Archives
  • Research & Analysis;
  • Teaching & knowledge sharing
  • Service to the community.
The Chair’s actions aim to strengthen narrative and normative sovereignties as well as to support effective practices of self-determination. The Chair pursues both the empowerment of First Peoples in research, excellence in research on the effective operationalization of the First Peoples' right to self-determination and the protection of Ancestral lands. Our team has as specific objectives to:
  • Protect threatened and marginalized oral archives, share with families the rich existing but unavailable stories of their Elders, and generate innovative self-archiving tools to support family and community narrative sovereignty;
  • Accompany individuals, families, and communities in recording their memories, producing and socializing their stories, especially with youth, through the use of social memory technology
  • Conduct advanced studies on contemporary manifestations of psychological colonialism and abuses of power through the amplification of marginalized memories and voices, including the study of phenomena related to cultural forgetting (amnesiology) and ignorance (agnology) as barriers to intergenerational knowledge and land protection
  • To support processes of analysis and applied research related to the expansion of legal orders, ancestral sovereignties and conceptions of autonomy
  • To provide cutting-edge pro bono expertise in training, memory project management, strengthening and affirmation of ancestral legal orders, conflict prevention and management, diplomacy and complex problem solving. 
The work of the Chair prioritizes research and training projects defined and implemented by, for and with First Peoples.
Research Chair