Community

Our department's faculty and student researchers work with both local and international communities. We are also deeply committed to Indigenous-led scholarship and research.

Local involvement

Ongoing outreach activities include class field trips with teachers and students in Vancouver Island school districts. We’ve taken part in professional development activities focused on Indigenous histories and legacies of colonialism in Nanaimo-Ladysmith, Cowichan Valley and Saanich.

Department members work with local municipal governments from Saanich to Colwood on Indigenizing municipal land use planning and park management. These prioritize Indigenous values, knowledges and rights in local land use decision-making.

Researchers also work with modern-day treaty First Nations and self-governing First Nations on the implementation on rights, title and governance. This includes a range of work, including:

• the care and protection of ancestral sites
• re-centering food security with traditional foods
• environmental assessment and consultation policy development
• implementing fair and transparent election processes

This includes documenting Vancouver Island archaeological sites under threat from local developments and climate change. We’re also partnering with Cowichan Tribes to design, build and interpret land-based learning facilities at an ancestral site.

A community-engaged arts-based research project brings together the Survivors of the Alberni Indian Residential School and their families along with UVic Elders in Residence, faculty, staff, and undergraduate and graduate students.

The Alberni Residential School Survivors Art and Education Society supports and delivers opportunities for Alberni Indian Residential School Survivors and their families. They take part in artistic, educational and social gatherings with a focus on education and healing from the legacy of residential schools in Canada.

The Huu-ay-aht names project and Huu-ay-aht archives project involve important work cataloguing Huu-ay-aht cultural names in ethnographic literature and census documents. Project members work with language speakers to have the names written in the Nuu-chah-nulth alphabet, as well as creating new names. These projects are also archiving and digitizing audio cassette tapes for the Huu-ay-aht.

In our Counter Currency Lab, we are working with community organizations on Vancouver Island and internationally. We are developing ways in which money and currency systems can be redesigned to reduce inequality, increase access to goods and services, and achieve long-term benefits for communities.

International involvement

Internationally, our faculty and students are collaborating with Arctic Indigenous communities (ARC:NAV, Frozen Commons and Arctic Indigenous Virtual Artist Network). We’re working to understand and address sustainability challenges and climate change while supporting community action. 

Our members participate in the United Nations discussions around biodiversity conservation, the International Decade of Indigenous languages, sustainable development goals and human rights. A key focus is redefining research planning and agendas that will meet the needs of the communities through engaging in international scholarly associations including the International Arctic Social Sciences Association (IASSA) and the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC).