New Sun Visiting Aboriginal Scholar – Jennifer Adese

Dr. Jennifer Adese, is the New Sun Visiting Aboriginal Scholar with a two-year appointment as an Assistant Professor in the School of Canadian Studies.  Adese is of the Otipemisiwak (Cree-Métis) and is descended from the historic Métis communities of Manitou Sakahigan and St. Albert.

Born in Coast Salish traditional territory, she was raised in Haudenosaunee and Neutral traditional territory in St. Catharines, Ontario.  She attended Lakehead University and obtained a BA in Political Science (Pre-Law) and an HBA in Political Science, along with minors in Women’s Studies and Severn Ojibwe.  Adese holds a Master’s degree in Cultural Studies & Critical Theory and a PhD in English (Cultural Studies stream) from McMaster University’s Department of English & Cultural Studies.  As a recipient of the Harvey E. Longboat Scholarship for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis and the SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship program, Adese completed her PhD in the summer of 2012.  She is currently developing a book proposal based on her dissertation research, which examines the construction of and visual representation of “Aboriginality” by Indigenous peoples and the Canadian state.  In her research, she reflects on depictions of Indianness and Aboriginality in the latter part of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries across a number of sites of visual cultural production – the Aboriginal tourism industry, the 1976, 1988 and 2010 Olympics, and Foxwoods Casino and Casino Rama.  Adese also considers the work of Indigenous mixed media artists that she argues engages in an exercise of what Jolene Rickard and Michelle Raheja have separately referred to as “visual sovereignty.”

Adese teaches within the Indigenous Studies minor program.  She has taught courses in Indigenous-settler relations and Indigenous representation.  This term, Adese is teaching a course titled “Indigenous Rights, Resistance, and Resurgence,” which examines the historical and contemporary climates through which Indigenous peoples have sought to challenge colonialism, work towards decolonization, and heal their communities.  Topics covered in the course include a focus on decolonization theory; pre-1960s resistances; post-1960s movements (including Kahnesatake, Grassy Narrows, Lubicon Lake, Temagami, Kanehstaton, #IdleNoMore); Northern and Inuit self-governance; Indigenous Women’s resistance and pathways to resurgence; and the rights movements (in both the Canadian-state and international contexts).