Current/Ongoing Research Projects

Program Chair, Graduate Program Coordinator & Associate Professor

• Walking Together – The Future of Indigenous Child Welfare on The Prairies Walking Together is the seventh title in the Voices of the Prairies series. Developed by the Prairie Child Welfare Consortium, this edited collection brings together accomplished Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars from the prairie provinces to forward critical research about a range of contemporary child welfare issues currently impacting Indigenous children in Canada.

Assistant Professor, Indigenous Communication Arts

• Shannon Avison, Assistant Professor, worked to complete an InSpirit research grant, Indigenous Language Broadcasting, from Library and Archives Canada throughout the 2020/21 fiscal year.

• Canadian Heritage awarded a grant to Shannon Avison in Indigenous Communication (INCA) and Fine Arts to produce a website and podcasts in the Indigenous languages of Saskatchewan. After consulting with language keepers and Elders, the project was named pîkiskwêwin–language in Cree. Due to COVID, most of the training for podcasters and designers has been done over Zoom; however, “we did record the first four episodes of a cooking show in person, following COVID protocols and entirely in Michif.” Although there are many podcasts by Indigenous producers, few are in Indigenous languages. The pîkiskwêwin podcasts are produced entirely in Indigenous languages, with English used only in the program summaries and producer bios.  

• Canadian Heritage project: www.pikiskwewin.ca