Aboriginal Education Research Forum 2017

Dr. Chantal Fiola

Dr. Chantal Fiola is Red River Métis Anishinaabe with family from St. Laurent and Ste. Geneviève, MB. She is the author of Rekindling the Sacred Fire: Métis Ancestry and Anishinaabe Spirituality, which won her the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer and the Beatrice Mosionier Aboriginal Writer of the Year Award (2016). She has a PhD in Indigenous Studies (Trent University), an MA in Sociology and Equity Studies in Education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (University of Toronto), and a BA (Hons) in Women’s and Gender Studies (University of Manitoba). She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban and Inner-City Studies at the University of Winnipeg. Prior to that, she taught in the Native Studies Department at the University of Manitoba since 2012. Chantal is on the Board of Directors (Executive Committee Secretary) for the Native Women’s Transition Centre. She is Midewiwin and participates regularly in Anishinaabe ceremonies.

Research Area: Dr. Fiola’s doctoral research examined Red River Métis relationships with traditional Indigenous spirituality, how these relationships continue to be influenced by colonization, as well as how participation in ceremony impacts self-identification. She has just been awarded SSHRC funding, through the Manitoba Research Alliance, to conduct a two-year study to build upon her doctoral research. With a team of Métis community researchers, Dr. Fiola will explore Red River Métis relationships with traditional Indigenous spirituality in five selected Manitoba Métis communities. She is interested in understanding whether Métis communities are using participation in ceremony as a form of decolonization to promote self-determination.

Dr. Jean-Paul Restoule

Jean-Paul Restoule is Anishinaabe and a member of the Dokis First Nation. He is associate professor of Aboriginal Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. He has been a member of OISE’s Indigenous Education Network since 1998 and was a co-chair of the network for 7 years. He co-founded SAGE Ontario, a peer support group for graduate students whose research involves Aboriginal communities, and is an original member of the OISE working group to infuse teacher education with Aboriginal perspectives called Deepening Knowledge, Enhancing Instruction. He’s contributed to research on urban Aboriginal identity, HIV prevention messaging in Aboriginal communities, access to post-secondary education for Aboriginal people, and curriculum development with Aboriginal perspectives.