Panelists

Bonnie Freeman (she/her) is Algonquin/Mohawk from the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory and is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work and Indigenous Studies at McMaster University.  Her scholarship focuses on Indigenous journeying (horseback, foot and canoeing) and land-based approaches in recognizing how the knowledge of land, water and the natural environment contribute to positive health and well-being for Indigenous peoples.  Her work also includes community-based and arts-based approaches to understanding and promoting social justice across many relations.

Giselle Dias is a queer, disabled Métis activist and educator. Her matrilineal ancestors are from the Red River (Hodgson and Fidler) and her patrilineal ancestors are South Asian and French. Giselle has worked in the field of prisoners’ rights, penal abolition, and transformative justice for almost 30 years. She is currently a faculty member with the Indigenous Field of Study, at Wilfrid Laurier University in the Faculty of Social Work

Jacinta Shawanda was born on Manitoulin Island (Mnidoo Mnising) and raised in Birch Island (Waagwaaskiniga).  She continues to make her home there with her husband Bill Moroz and their 3 cats Jack, Gypsy Fortune and Magic Woods.  Her parents, Margaret and Henry Shawanda, were best known as “Builders” of the Little NHL Tournament” which started in the 1970’s. Jacinta is Anishinaabe and Potawatomi.  She grew up in a home with two Ojibwe speaking parents and six older brothers.  She earned a 4 year degree from U of T, specializing in Aboriginal Studies and a Bachelor of Education from Queens University via the Indigenous Teacher Education Program.  Ms. Shawanda also holds an Adult Educator Certificate from Canadore College. Jacinta believes in the importance of Indigenous Education, lifelong learning from cradle to grave.  Although Jacinta was raised Roman Catholic, her chapter in this book will specifically reveal how she began the journey of decolonizing her mind, heart and physical being.  Spiritually, she is Anishinaabe, which will never change. Jacinta has walked the tight rope between Catholicism, Western Science and Anishinaabek spirituality and feels she has come away with knowing who she truly is as Anishinaabe.  She has written a few poems as a young woman, one of which will be included in her chapter of this book.

Jacqueline Briggs is a SSHRCC Postdoctoral Fellow (2021-2024) at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law. She has a PhD in Criminology and Sociolegal Studies from the University of Toronto (2021). Her research broadly focuses on two areas of Canadian legal history: lawyers and colonialism, and administrative colonialism. Jacquie's PhD was a study of a federal legal aid program for Indigenous persons on trial for capital murder across Canada from the 1870s to 1970. Born in the territory of the Dish With One Spoon wampum covenant (Toronto), where both her parents were also born, Jacquie identifies as a white settler of Irish and English ancestry.

Ben Carniol was born in Czechoslovakia. He was a hidden child in Belgium when his parents were murdered as part of the Nazi genocide against Jews, When World War II was over, he was adopted by a branch of his family living in Ottawa. As an adult he graduated with a law degree, then trained in social work. His first job was in Cleveland, Ohio, doing community development. After returning to Canada, he worked with welfare clients in Montreal, then became a social work educator, social activist, and author in Calgary and Toronto. He coordinated a social work partnership between his university and First Nations Technical Institute from Tyendinaga, working with Indigenous Elders and students in land-based education. He is Professor Emeritus from the renamed Toronto Metropolitan University, and a facilitator with the Centre for Indigegogy from Laurier University. He lives in Toronto with his life partner of over fifty years, has two daughters and two grandchildren who also live in Toronto. 

Christine Mayor, PhD, BCT/RDT, RP is a white settler born and raised on the island of Bermuda and currently living on the original lands of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Ojibway-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples and on the homeland of the Métis nation in Winnipeg, MB. She is an Assistant Professor at the Inner City Social Work Program at the University of Manitoba, where she her interdisciplinary research program focuses on the intersection of trauma, (anti-)racism, educational equity, and the arts in healing and pedagogy. She has also been profoundly impacted by the teachings she has received from the Centre for Indigegogy.

Jennifer or Jen Poole (she/her) is white, first generation settler to T’karonto. She was part of the first cohort of the Decolonizing Education Program at the Centre for Indigegogy and has been finding her way back to spirit and out of a deep colonial coma ever since. In her professional life, she is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at Toronto Metropolitan University where her work sits at the intersection of oppression, madness and health. While supporting learners is her professional priority, current re-search projects focus on grief, sanism and decolonizing education. She is a bonus Mom, a peer supporter, a TEDx talker and a very silly auntie. She is happiest outside.     

Cheryl-Anne Cait is an associate professor, Laurier Faculty of Social Work. Her research and practice are in the area of death, dying, bereavement, grief and identity. Her research also involves exploring community-based approaches to hospice and palliative care. She has been working in the area of death, dying and bereavement since 1991.  She teaches in the MSW and PhD programs as well as in Walls to Bridges, a program where university level courses are taught in correctional institutions, and equal numbers of incarcerated students and university-based students learn together as peers.  She is dedicated to experiential learning and teaching, arts-based approaches to knowledge development and decolonizing knowledge development and death, dying and grief.

Kathy Absolon is an Anishinaabe kwe from Flying Post First Nation. Her academic journey has been a pathway of unlearning, healing, re-learning and finding who she is as an Indigenous woman and her place in the academy. Kathy's Anishinaabe name is Minogiizhigo kwe which translates to mean Shining Day Woman, the one who brings goodness and beauty to the day.

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In 2008, she received her PhD from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. "Kaandossiwn, this is how we come to know: Indigenous research methodologies in the academy" was her dissertation title with a focus on Indigenous research. Since then Kathy has been teaching Indigenous re-search methodologies and asserting Indigenous ways of coming into knowledge. The Decolonizing Journeys project is in partnerships with a digital story lab and educators who have completed the Decolonizing education certificate, herself included. For Kathy, education has been a process of building dual knowledge bundles: one as an Anishinaabe kwe and her teachings and the other is a critical knowledge bundle fuelled by mainstream education. Kathy carries dual knowledge bundles that are informed by the land, spirit, decolonizing, indigenizing and anti-colonialism.

In 2007 she came to the Indigenous Field of Study in the Faculty of Social Work (now Indigenous Field of Study) at Laurier with a blending of teaching, practice, and community work. Since she has been at Laurier, Kathy has taught in the Indigenous Field of Study Indigenous re-search, wholistic healing practices, culture camp, kinship and community, and Traditional Indigenous knowledge in wholistic practices. She has provided ongoing leadership to the Program during her tenure. In Kathy's role as Director of the Centre for Indigegogy, she focuses on generating decolonial, Indigenous centred and wholistic training for ongoing professional training for educators and practitioners across an array of settings.

Jerri-Lynn Orr is Cree and Metis, and Canadian, her family's community is Bigstone Cree Nation and she has roots in the Red River Settlement, present day Winnipeg by her mother. She also has Polish, German and Swedish roots from her father. She grew up most of her life in Winnipeg with her mom, but has strong ties to Northern Ontario, living in places like Red Lake, Atikokan, Fort Frances, and many summers in Beardmore, and Thunder Bay, Ontario. Jerri-Lynn has worked in Indigenous education for most of her career in Winnipeg and Thunder Bay. The work she does is in honour of her mom, Monique L'Hirondelle Houle Chester and many other family members who have been harmed by the Canadian educational (and other) system(s). She also does this work for Indigenous students who are coming to the university, to help make change for future generations in this space, so they feel welcome and like they belong. Currently, she is the Indigenous Curriculum Specialist at Lakehead  University, and has worked at Lakehead since 2013.

Jessica Hutchison (she/her) is a white settler, abolition feminist, and activist-scholar who is deeply committed to dismantling racist and colonial systems that perpetuate harm and violence. She is currently a new professor and PhD Candidate in Social Work at Wilfrid Laurier University whose work is informed by her long-standing prisoners’ rights advocacy, and solidarity with those most impacted by systems of oppression and domination. Jessica teaches in social work and critical criminology; is a Research Associate with the Centre for Indigegogy; and an active member of a grassroots collective in Waterloo Region advocating for the redistribution of police funding towards community-based and equity-centred initiatives.

Shelley Rempel grew up in a white German, Mennonite, settler family on Treaty 4 or so-called Saskatchewan. She currently lives with her family on the traditional territory of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Mississaugas, or so-called Hamilton, Ontario. This land is governed by the by the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, the Between the Lakes Purchase agreement, and the Upper Canada Treaty Agreement.

Shelley was the Executive Director of the Housing Help Centre in Hamilton for more than ten years. The HHC worked with people who were unhoused or in danger of losing their housing. In 2001 Shelley left the HHC to join Mohawk College as Professor in the Social Service Work program. Her areas of teaching, interest and study include anti-oppressive, anti-racist theory, and decolonizing practices, political advocacy and activism, community organizing, social welfare policy, and environmental social work. In 2017 she published her first book - Advocacy in Practice: Creating a Culture of Social Change in the Human Services, Oxford University Press.

Shelley is active in her faculty union, OPSEU Local 240. She has served as a Steward for over ten years, been elected as a convention delegate, recently worked as Chief Steward and was a Picket line Captain during the historic 5-week strike in 2017. Shelly was just recognized by Local 240 with an award for Excellence in Community Engagement. Shelley’s formal education includes a BSW from McMaster University, an MA in Social Welfare Policy form McMaster University and a Doctorate in Education (EdD) from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto.

Katka Hrncic-Lipovic (she, her) is a White settler, originally from Vrnograc, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Displaced at age 14 due to the civil war in Bosnia, Katka spent three years in two different refugee camps in Croatia along with her parents and siblings before coming to Canada in 1997 at age 17. Toughened by the war experience, and with an immense desire to leave the war years behind, Katka completed high school in three years, followed by a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Social Work degrees at the University of Windsor. As a child of parents who had an interethnic marriage (Catholic/Muslim, Slovenian/Bosnian), Katka has always had a deep appreciation for diversity and a strong commitment to human rights and social justice. In 2017, as a learner in the first cohort of the Decolonizing Education Certificate, at the Centre of Indigegogy, Wilfrid Laurier University, Katka began her journey of waking up from what Dr. Kathy Absolon calls ‘the colonial coma’ and taking ‘a deep dive’ into the history, experiences, and resilience of Indigenous peoples of Canada. Katka's rosy picture of Canada as a safe haven for refugees was confronted by the injustices, oppression, indifference, and colonial violence experienced by Indigenous peoples in Canada. The journey of unlearning, decolonizing, and re-learning has been transformative in many ways on both personal and professional levels.  

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Katka currently works as a Field Learning Specialist at the School of Social Work, University of Windsor, and is in the process of completing her PhD in social work exploring and documenting experiences of the Bosnian diaspora in the United States. In her free time, Katka practices ethnic folklore dancing and spends time with family and friends.

Julia Elizabeth Janes:  Is a White, disabled, settler alumnus of the Decolonizing Education Certificate program at the Centre for Indigegogy and an assistant professor of social work at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador situated on the unceded lands of the Beothuk and Mi’kmaq. Julia’s scholarship and activisms centre decolonizing pedagogies, research, and praxes, community/university engagements, arts-infused and critical methodologies. Julia collaborates with the Innu nation and Nunavut Arctic College to develop and deliver decolonizing social work education. When the ice melts, Julia can be found swimming in the ponds and lakes of Ktaqmkuk and Rama First Nation.

Simone Weil Davis is a Settler living on Treaty 13 territory, and a grateful daughter, sister, partner, mother and Nana. She is a co-founder of the national Walls to Bridges program, and remains a proud and active member of the Walls to Bridges Collective. W2B creates shared, holistic opportunities for people in and out of prison to teach, learn and unlearn together. Simone currently teach Ethics, Society and Law at the University of Toronto. I think interconnection drives me most. Her written and lived work today centers on critical, holistic, decolonizing, and anti-racist pedagogies; educational justice; working alongside people in and emerging from prison; and fanning the flames, when possible, of creative resistance and joy.