eNewsletter of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

February 2024

WHAT WE HEARD: AGENCIES RELEASE REPORT ON INSIGHTS INTO INDIGENOUS CITIZENSHIP AND MEMBERSHIP

The three federal research funding agencies have released What We Heard: A Report from the Three Federal Research Funding Agencies’ Ad Hoc Working Group on Indigenous Citizenship and Membership. The report reflects voices and perspectives of Indigenous Peoples around Indigenous citizenship and membership affirmation. The document focuses on key principles and themes emerging from a series of engagements with Indigenous researchers, academics and thought leaders, and institutional representatives, throughout spring and summer 2023. It also identifies resulting considerations and next steps toward developing a policy framework.

Research-creation project explores what it means to be Black and Free



University of Waterloo associate professor and Canada Research Chair in Race, Gender and Performance Naila Keleta-Mae is also an accomplished multidisciplinary artist. Bringing her worlds together, she leads Black and Free, a SSHRC-funded research-creation project involving numerous organizations and over 30 researchers and students. Combining research, exhibition and performance, artistic production, teaching, knowledge mobilization and public engagement, Keleta-Mae’s barriers-breaking project both explores and expresses Black freedom across the arts. Her team is delving into the art of Black freedom in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean, and making their own. Focusing on successes and artistic outcomes—from Beyoncé’s boardroom to school gyms, poetry books, galleries, museums and community theatre—they are exploring what a world without anti-Blackness could be.

Social sciences and humanities integral to the futures of space, Earth and art

Social sciences and humanities researchers have been leading many large-scale, interdisciplinary projects supported through the New Frontiers in Research Fund. Coming from a broad range of fields, such as literature, education, law and political science, they and their multidisciplinary teams are opening doors to futures that are truly sustainable. Their work is leading to new, inclusive perspectives in literature and art; regenerating landscapes devastated by mining; and tackling the space debris crisis.