Susan Roy

Associate Professor and Associate Chair (Graduate)

Research and teaching interests

Canadian social and cultural history Portrait of Susan Roy

Indigenous rights and settler colonial histories
Community-engaged research
Public History

My research examines the history of Indigenous-non-Indigenous relationships in Canada with attention to cultural performance, resource and urban development disputes, and land rights activism. I was a guest curator for the award winning, collaborative museum exhibition, c̓əsnaʔəm: the city before the city, that highlights xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqeam First Nation) history and ongoing connection to the urban landscapes of Vancouver. My book, These Mysterious People: Shaping History and Archaeology in a Northwest Coast Community, details how Musqueam’s legal and cultural expressions challenged public and museum-based accounts of Indigenous history throughout the 20^th century.

My current r esearch includes a collaborative book project that examines the intersections of shíshalh (Sechelt First Nation) genealogies, land rights, and colonial encounters on the Northwest Coast; Songs in the Key of Cree, an arts-based Cree language revitalization project led by Cree playwright Tomson Highway, and, with Phil Monture of Six Nations of the Grand River, Six Miles Deep: Mapping Environmental Transformation in the Haldimand Tract Territories of the Six Nations of the Grand River. I also incorporate digital technologies and other forms of multi-media presentation to bring historical research to wider publics.

Courses taught

HIST 200 History and Film
HIST 202 Introduction to Public History
HIST 269 Indigenous Histories of Canada
HIST 271 Global Indigenous Issues
HIST 302 Public History Project
HIST 403A Canadian Social and Cultural History
HIST 422 Oral History and Podcasting
HIST 422 Canadian Histories through Literature
HIST 612 Global Indigenous Rights

Areas of graduate supervision

Canadian social and cultural history

Indigenous and settler colonial histories

Community-based research methodologies

Oral history and public history

Recent publications and exhibitions

Guest curator for c̓əsnaʔəm, the city before the city at the Museum of Vancouver, 2015-present. https://museumofvancouver.ca/csnam-the-city-before-the-city

These Mysterious People: Shaping History and Archaeology in a Northwest Coast Community Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010, 2^nd ed 2016.

“I Live off this Land:” Tahltan Women and Activism in Northern British Columbia,” Woman’s History Review (Rutledge), in issue “Gender and Indigenous-Immigrant Encounters and Entanglements,” eds. Melinda Marie Jetté and Carol Williams, Vol. 28, Issue 1, 2019.

“Visualizing Nature and Culture: William Taylor’s Murals in the Hall of the Northwest Coast Indian, American Museum of Natural History,” in Antiquities and Nature in the Americas, 1820-1914, eds. Eds. Irina Podgorny, Philip Kohl, Stefanie Gänger. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2014.

with Ruth Taylor, “‘We Were Real Skookum Women’: The shíshálh Economy and the Logging Industry on the Pacific Northwest Coast,” in Indigenous Women’s Work: from Labor to Activism, ed. Carol Williams. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2012.

“A History of the Site: The Kitsilano Indian Reserve,” in Digital Natives, eds. Lorna Brown and Clint Burnham (Vancouver: Other Sights for Artists’ Projects and City of Vancouver Public Art Program, 2012).

Awards and achievements

Sewá:ko (arriving home): Indigenous Housing and Building for the Next Seven Generations (PI), New Frontiers in Research (with Phil Monture, Six Nations), 2020-2023.

Dancing Histories: Archiving Indigenous Performance in Canada (PI), SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant, 2020-2022 (with Dance Collection Danse), 2020-2022.

Six Miles Deep: Mapping Environmental Transformation in the Haldimand Tract Territories of the Six Nations of the Grand River (PI), SSHRC Partnership Development Grant (with Phil Monture, Six Nations and Sheri Longboat, University of Guelph), 2020-2023.

Ayamoowin ijwa paapoowin–Songs in the Key of Cree–Laughter and Language Revitalization in Canada (PI), SSHRC Partnership Development Grant (with Tomson Highway and other collaborators), 2017-2020.

Faculty of Arts, University of Waterloo, Service Award, 2020.

Governor General’s History Award for Museums, c̓əsnaʔəm, the city before the city, with the curatorial team and partners, 2015.

Public History Award, Canadian Historical Association, c̓əsnaʔəm, the city before the city, with the curatorial team and partners, 2015.

Ontario Early Researcher Award, Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, 2014- 2019.

The Indigenous Archive: Sechelt Genealogy, Literacy, and the Colonial Encounter (PI), SSHRC Insight Grant, 2015-2017.

The Marpole Project: The History and Politics of Indigenous Heritage Sites in Canada (PI), SSHRC Partnership Development Grant (with Musqueam First Nations and other partners), 2013-2015.