Dr. Jennifer Brant, Founder and Director

She:kon Jennifer Brant Ionkiats. I am first and foremost a mother of two boys and belong to the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk Nation) with family ties to Six Nations of the Grand River Territory and Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory. I am an Associate Professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. I write and teach about Indigenous maternal pedagogies, and position Indigenous literatures as liberatory praxis to move students beyond passive empathy, inspire healing and wellness, and foster socio-political action. I have a passion for Indigenous literatures and my scholarly work involves sharing this passion with students and colleagues. I have personally experienced Indigenous literatures as ‘a recognition of being’ and understand this revolutionary body of work as a site of resistance, rebirth, and renewal. Indeed, as Beth Brant wrote Indigenous literatures call “me into the sacred territory of story and meaning.” Working with the Indigenous literatures lab allows me to share the beauty and brilliance of Indigenous literatures with wider audiences bringing theory to practice. My writing also includes two co-edited books with Dawn Memee Lavell-Harvard to bring awareness about racialized, sexualized, and gender-based violences: Rematriating Justice: Honouring Our Missing Sisters (2024) and Forever Loved: Exposing the Hidden Crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (2016). Overall, my work centres anti-colonial praxis and seeks to encourage effective responses to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's 94 Calls to Action and the 231 Calls for Justice released in Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. When I'm not reading and writing, I enjoy spending time hiking and kayaking with my family or working on one of my many quilting projects.  

Lab Members

  • Gayatri Thakor (she/her)

    Gayatri Thakor (she/her) is a Curriculum & Pedagogy doctoral student at OISE. Her research focuses on how Indigenous pedagogies and the anti-colonial praxis of spirituality can support teacher candidates to heal from spirit injuries. Gayatri is interested in creating spaces of learning, centered in interconnectedness, joy, accountability, and radical love. In her free time, she enjoys going café hopping, taking walks in nature, and watching reality TV. The next book on her reading list is A Grandmother Begins the Story by Michelle Porter.

  • Erenna Morrison

    Erenna Morrison is a Curriculum and Pedagogy doctoral candidate at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Erenna has a background in Early Childhood Education and a Masters in Teaching. Her developing PhD research focuses on reconciliatory education, specifically concerning the elementary religion curriculum in denominational schools. During her time working with the Indigenous Literatures Lab, Erenna has become particularly drawn to the work of Métis author, Katherena Vermette.

  • Meagan Hamilton (she/her)

    Meagan is a white settler high school educator and doctoral candidate in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at OISE. She completed her Masters of Education in 2017. Her research focuses on teachers’ pedagogical approaches to Indigenous Literatures and how to use Daniel Heath Justice’s guiding questions from “Why Indigenous Literatures Matter” as a strengths-based pedagogical approach in her classes. She has been part of the Indigenous Literatures Lab since its inception.

  • Jasmine Rice (she/her)

    Jasmine is a doctoral student in the department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning. Her research focuses on the relationship between Indigenous language learning and cultural identity. She is a secondary languages and social studies educator looking to merge these experiences with her background as a Kanien’kéha (Mohawk) student and language learner. Her areas of interest in research include socio-emotional and socio-cultural factors on First Nations language learning experiences. 

  • Miyo Cheechoo

    ᐗᒡᐦᐊᔾ᙮ I am ᐁᓕᓕᓘ, and a doctoral student in the Curriculum and Pedagogy program at OISE. I am passionate about exploring Indigenous speculative fiction and wonderworks as transformative forms of re-storying what an Indigenous future can be, in a way that envisions futures beyond the limitations of settler colonialism. My favorite non-fiction book is Decolonizing Traumawork by Renee Linklater, and my favorite novel is Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson. ᒦᑴᒡ

  • Razan Samara

    Razan Samara (she/her) is a Palestinian community worker, graduate researcher, and arts educator. Razan is currently a Phd student in the Social Justice Education and a Graduate Assistant in the Indigenous literatures Lab. She works from Indigenous and Palestinian feminist epistemologies to consider the relationships, material cultures, and joint resistances between Palestinian and Indigenous communities engaging in collective world building on Turtle Island.

  • Elisha Gauthier (she/her)

    Elisha is a first-year doctoral student in Curriculum and Pedagogy and a Graduate Assistant in the Indigenous Literatures Lab. Her research explores the potentiality for children’s literature in fostering environmental stewardship and reimagining curriculum through a decolonial lens. Passionate about Indigenous literature, she believes in the transformative power of storytelling as liberatory practice. Her next read is Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice, and she loves reading When We Are Kind by Monique Gray Smith to her daughter.