Research profile: Sherry Pictou

Sherry Pictou, Faculties of Law and Management

Re-grounding of Indigenous women and governance based on Indigenous land- & water-based laws and treaty relations

Dr. Pictou was awarded a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Governance (2021–26). Her research program seeks to address concerns about the limited participation of Indigenous women in governance and decision-making processes, focusing on natural resources, as evidenced by Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (2019). In collaboration with Indigenous women, Dr. Pictou’s research generates a gender-based analysis from an Indigenous perspective that will inform Indigenous and non-Indigenous governance practices. The research builds on a SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant with KAIROS, a Canadian ecumenical organization for social environmental justice. The study is titled “Building Indigenous–academic–not-for-profit relations for mobilizing research knowledge on the gendered impacts of resource extraction in Indigenous communities in Canada”. This project is in its final phase, which involves a digital storytelling project to be hosted on the Mother Earth and Resource Extraction Hub and a final report about a gathering of Wolastoqiyik and Mi’kmaq Grandmothers and Land Defenders and their shared experiences, challenges, successes and strategies for building capacity toward transforming legislation and polices to take into account the impacts of resource extraction on gender.