Sociology Department Team Awarded a SSHRC Race, Gender and Diversity Initiative Grant for the Unearthing Justices Partnership Project

Bishop’s University is proud to announce that Dr. Vicki Chartrand, Dr. Genner Llanes-Ortiz and Dr. Alex Miltsov of the Sociology Department received a Race, Gender and Diversity Initiative grant for the Unearthing Justices Partnership (UJP): Digital Mapping of Indigenous Grassroots Resources and Supports for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit+ (MMIWG2S+) People project. This research project will be done in collaboration with Indigenous Knowledge Keepers Gladys Radek (Tears4Justice) and Viola Thomas (Protect Our Indigenous Sisters Society), along with many Indigenous partners involved in addressing MMIW2S+ people. The goal of UJP is to partner with Indigenous-based collectivities to collaboratively organize and mobilize Indigenous-led and Indigenous-based resources and supports to address the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirit + People.

Having concluded that the long-term and ongoing murders and disappearances of Indigenous women, girls, and Two Spirit (MMIWG2S+) people is genocide, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (2019) made 231 Calls to Justice in relation to culture, health, security, and criminal justice to address the ongoing colonial dispossession and systemic, racialized, and gendered violence against MMIWG2S+ people. While the violence against MMIWG2S+ people is well documented, there has been less consideration of how Indigenous families and communities have actively navigated the terrain where justice continues to be absent, elusive, or invasive, if not violent. To address this challenge and heed the Calls to Justice, the UJP partnership seeks to digitally map, showcase, and share Indigenous-led and Indigenous-based models and resources of support for the MMIWG2S+ people through the development of a national website and other digital media platforms.

This research partnership seeks to: 1) to center and build on Indigenous families and communities’ existing capacities, strengths, and self-determination to address the murders, disappearances, and violence; 2) to make visible the important work that already exists in Indigenous communities for public education, policy and program innovations, and potential funding; 3) to facilitate connections and networks and the sharing of resources between Indigenous groups and individuals involved in the MMIWG2S+ people work; and 4) to analyze and establish a digital based infrastructure and other media of resources and supports to address violence against MMIWG2S+ people.

The goal of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Race, Gender and Diversity Initiative is to support community-based and community-led research partnerships with postsecondary institutions that are grounded in the lived experience of underrepresented or disadvantaged groups and that analyze the causes and persistence of systemic racism and discrimination. Leadership by people from underrepresented or disadvantaged groups in research projects about race, gender and diversity is important to help ensure the research is grounded in the complexities of the lived experiences and histories of diverse groups and individuals, and to inform more rigorous and relevant policy and program design. On May 9^th 2022, the results of the 2021 competition were made available to the research community. With the high rate of applications, this success rate of this competition was under 30%, and we are more than impressed that the application by Dr. Vicki Chartrand, Dr. Genner Llanes-Ortiz and Dr. Alex Miltsov ranked in the top of the second sextile. Congratulations on this exciting result!

To learn about Indigenous initiatives for MMIWG2S+, support and grow community resources and creative justices, consult the Unearthing Justices Resource Collection.