Stephanie Erickson is a doctoral student at the University of Victoria, studying in the English Department and the Cultural, Social, and Political Thought concentration program. Her area of research is Indigenous Futurism Literatures and their social and political significance for understanding and acting upon reconciliation in Canada. This work engages components of land and water stewardship, climate action, Indigenous language revitalization, and gender equity. Erickson’s research is further informed by her personal identity as a young Indigenous woman with mixed Red River Métis and German and Scandinavian settler ancestry. In accordance with Métis traditions, she offers her family names here: Swain, Breland, Grant, and Dauphinais. Born on Treaty 1 territory in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Erickson’s family quickly moved to BC where she grew up on the Okanagan Syilx territory. She completed an Associate diploma at Okanagan College before transferring to UBC (Okanagan campus), where she earned her BA in Creative Writing (2019). Erickson’s personal passion for social justice then led her to at McMaster University, where her thesis focused on reproductive futurism in the Gender and Social Justice MA program (2022). Alongside her dissertation research at UVic, Erickson actively contributes to decolonizing pedagogy through multiple research and teaching appointments.
Relationally responsibly reading: an approach to Indigenous literary criticism amid Métis identity politics in Canada
2025
This research investigates Indigenous literary criticism practices relative to contemporary identity politics in a Canadian context, focusing on Métis (one of three constitutionally recognized Indigenous Peoples in Canada) politics considering recent accusations of identity theft leveled against the Métis Nation of Ontario at the first ever Summit of Indigenous Identity Fraud. This article provides an overview of the situation, followed by a suggested approach to Indigenous literary criticism that accounts for such identity politics, using Cherie Dimaline’s young adult novel, The Marrow Thieves (2017) as an example site for exploration. Considering the context and contention around Métis Nation of Ontario and its membership, this article develops a method of literary criticism that accounts for Indigenous identity politics and calls for responsibility and relationality in all readerships. This approach to literary criticism is called relationally responsible reading.
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Relational Visioning: Re-considering Approaches and Alternatives to ‘Reconciliation’ in Canada
2025
This paper explores various rhetorical approaches to the contemporary dialogue around reconciliation in Canada. Through a critical review of different forms of reconciliation, the author critiques these forms for their various advantages and disadvantages in efforts towards reconciliation. On the other side of these critiques, this paper gathers the reasoning and intention behind reconciliation to argue for new terminology that better expresses these sentiments. Drawing on her Indigenous language, Michif, and its culture to support this work, the author describes the concept of relational visioning as an approach to reconciliation in contemporary Canadian context.
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Research Responsibility Agreement: a tool to support ethical research
2023
When engaging in community-based research, it is important to consider ethical research practices throughout the project. While current research practices require many investigators to obtain approval from an ethics review board before starting a project, more is required to ensure that ethical principles are applied once the investigations begin and after the investigations are complete. In response to this concern, as expressed by workers at a feminist non-profit during a community placement, we developed a tool to foster both greater ethical and feminist research practice in community-based research. Using feminist theories, methodologies, and concepts such as epistemic justice, epistemic trust, and coauthorship, a tool was developed to support researchers and other collaborators in building relationships of reciprocity. This tool, called the Research Responsibility Agreement (RRA) invites all members of a research project to explicitly reflect on their role in the research, their relationships with other collaborators, their responsibility to contributing meaningfully in the project, and their plans to remain accountable to one another. In doing so, the RRA adds to existing tools that support ethical research by sharing explicit reflections from all collaborators on how to prevent harm and by asking them to reflect on ethical practices beyond the initial stages of the project. The RRA also encourages greater engagement from researchers and collaborators toward building meaningful relationships with each other, and with participants, to work together in advancing social change. As a practical tool that promotes reflection, that builds relationships, and that holds all parties accountable to ethical and feminist research practices, the RRA has the potential to generate impactful change in community-based research projects and beyond. While the RRA is tailored to community-based research, it can be applied widely to any research project and has the potential to revolutionize how research relationships are built across disciplines.
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