Chris Hiller

Recent publications

Davis, L., Denis, J.S., Hiller, C., & Lavell-Harvard, D. M. (In press). For the Long Haul: The Connective Tissue of Long-Term Indigenous-Settler Alliances. University of Manitoba Press.

Hiller, C. (In press). Chapter four: A complicated work of heart and spirit: KAIROS Canada and Indigenous-settler alliance-building. In L. Davis, J.S. Denis, C. Hiller, & D.M. Lavell-Harvard, For the Long Haul: The Connective Tissue of Long-Term Indigenous-Settler Alliances. University of Manitoba Press.

Hiller, C. (2025). Folding back the covers on Canada’s history of Indigenous dispossession: The evolution of the KAIROS Blanket Exercise. Journal of Canadian Studies, 59(2), 317-343.

Parker-Shandal, C., Hiller, C., Rooke, D.M., & Hunt, L. (2025).  Newcomer Settlement in Rural Canada: Emphasizing Ontario’s Civics Curriculum and Indigenous Relations. Citizenship Education Research Journal, 11(1). https://ojso.library.ubc.ca/index.php/CERJ/issue/current

Carlson-Manathara, E., & Hiller, C. (2024). Indigenous sovereignty is climate action: Centring Indigenous lands and jurisdiction in social work education towards climate justice. In S. Hillock (Ed.), Greening social work education: Caring sustainability (pp. 45-64). University of Toronto Press. 

Davis., L., Hare, J., Hiller, C., Morcom, L., & Taylor, L. (2023). Pedagogies of inheriting: Kitchen table conversations. Special Issue on Indigenous Pedagogy in Contingencies: A Journal of Global Pedagogy, 2 (2), 1-34. https://doi.org/10.33682/8kwh-ug1q 

Davis, L., Denis, J., Hiller, C., & Lavell-Harvard, D. (2022). Learning and unlearning: Settler engagements in long-term Indigenous-settler alliances in Canada. Ethnicities, 22(5), 619-641.  DOI: 10.1177/14687968211063911 

Davis, L., & Hiller, C. (2021). Engaging citizens in Indigenous-non-Indigenous relations. In K.A.H. Graham & D. Newhouse (Eds.), Sharing the land, sharing a future: The legacy of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (pp. 363-4404). University of Manitoba Press. 

Hiller, C. (2019). KAIROS Canada and efforts to build Indigenous solidarity. Paper presented as part of panel presented at the annual conference of the Native American/Indigenous Studies Association, University of Waikato, Hamilton, Aotearoa/New Zealand. 

Davis, L., Hare, J., Hiller, C., Morcom, L., & Taylor, L.K. (2018). Editorial: Challenges, possibility, and responsibilities: Sharing stories and critical questions for changing classrooms and academic institutions. Special issue of Canadian Journal of Native Education, 40(1), 1-12. 

Davis, L., Hare, J., Hiller, C., Morcom, L., & Taylor, L.K. (Eds.) (2018). Challenges, possibility, and responsibilities: Sharing stories and critical questions for changing classrooms and academic institutions. Special issue of Canadian Journal of Native Education, 40(1), 1-184.

Davis, L., Hare, J., Hiller, C., Morcom, L., & Taylor, L. K. (2018). Conversations about Indigenizing, decolonizing and transformative pedagogical practices. Canadian Journal of Native Education, 40(1), 13-35. 

Davis, L., Hiller, C., James, C., Lloyd, K., Nasca, T., & Taylor, S. (2018). Complicated pathways: Settler Canadians learning to re/frame themselves and their relationships with Indigenous peoples. In L. Davis, J.S. Denis, & R. Sinclair (Eds.), Pathways of settler decolonization (1st ed., pp. 6-21). Routledge.

Hiller, C. (2018). Tracing the spirals of unsettlement: Euro-Canadian narratives of coming to grips with Indigenous sovereignty, title, and rights. In L. Davis, J.S. Denis, & R. Sinclair (Eds.), Pathways of settler decolonization (1st ed.). Routledge. 

Hiller, C., & Carlson, E. (2018). These are Indigenous lands: Foregrounding settler colonialism and Indigenous sovereignty as primary contexts for Canadian environmental social work.  Canadian Social Work Review of Social Work/ Revue Canadienne de Service Social, 35(1), 45–70. https://doi.org/10.7202/1051102a

Conference presentations

Davis, L., Corbiere Lavell, J., Denis, J., Hiller, C., & Lavell-Harvard, D. (2025, June 2). Sinews of Solidarity: Learning from Long-Term Indigenous-Settler Alliances. Panel presented at Canadian Sociological Association, George Brown College, Toronto, Ontario.

Carlson-Manathara, E., & Hiller, C. (2024, June 18). Indigenous sovereignty is climate action. Presented as part of panel presentation at the Annual Conference of the Canadian Association for Social Work Education, University of Montréal, Montréal, Québec.

Hiller, C. (2023, November 3). (Un)covering Canada's history of dispossession: the KAIROS Blanket Exercise as a tool towards decolonization. Presented virtually to the Annual American Studies Association Conference, Le Centre Sheraton Montréal, Montréal, Québec.  

Davis, L., Denis, J., Hiller, C., & Lavell-Harvard, D. (2021, February 2). Learning and unlearning: Settler engagements in long-term Indigenous-settler alliances in Canada. Settler Responsibilities Toward Decolonisation International Symposium, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.   

Davis, L., Denis, J., Hiller, C., & Lavell-Harvard, D. (2020, August 10). For the long haul: What we can learn from long-term Indigenous-settler alliances. Online panel presented at the Indigenous-Led Movements and the Role of Alliances Session of the 115th American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, California. 

Lavell-Harvard, D., Hiller, C., Denis, J., & Davis, L. (2020, February). For the long haul: Alliances for Indigenous justice. Panel to be presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Indigenous/Native Studies Association, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario. 

Davis, L., Hare, J., Hiller, C., Morcom, L, & Taylor, L. (2019, April). Critical cross-disciplinary approaches to Indigenization, decolonization, and reconciliation. Roundtable session at the Indigenous Peoples of the Americans SIG, American Educational Research Association Annual Conference, Toronto, Ontario.

Denis, J., Davis, L., Lavell-Harvard, D., Schuitemaker, N., & Hiller, C. (2019, May). For the long haul: What we can learn from long-term Indigenous-settler alliances. Panel presented at the annual conference of the Canadian Sociological Association, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC. 

Hiller, C. (2019). KAIROS Canada and efforts to build Indigenous solidarity. Paper presented as part of panel presented at the annual conference of the Native American/Indigenous Studies Association, University of Waikato, Hamilton, Aotearoa/New Zealand. 

Hiller, C., & Carlson, E. (2017, May). These are Indigenous lands: Settler colonialism, Indigenous sovereignty, and green social work. Paper presentation at the Annual Conference of the Canadian Association of Social Work Education, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario.

Hiller, C. & Van Katwyk, T. (2017, May). Attending to the architecture: Immersing in place as a set of de/colonizing relations. Showcase presentation at Pedagogies of Decolonization and Reconciliation in the Post-Secondary Classroom (Session II: Pedagogies for Putting Reconciliation into Action in the Classroom), subconference of the Canadian Critical Pedagogy Association/Canadian Society for the Study of Education, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario.        

Current research projects

For the long haul: What we can learn from long-term Indigenous-settler alliances (SSHRC Insight Development Grant, June 2018-May 2020; Principal Investigator Lynne Davis (Trent University); Co-Investigators Jeff Denis (McMaster University), Chris Hiller (Renison University College), Dawn Lavallee-Harvard (Trent University).

Using a critical case study approach informed by Indigenous research methodologies, this pilot project explored how long-term Indigenous-settler alliances emerge and unfold in Canada.

Privileging the voices, experiences, and analyses of alliance participants, we considered how such relationships of support and solidarity surface, shift, and develop over time, all in response to changing social and political conditions, shifting needs, knowledges, and capacities, evolving relationships, and emerging demands for decolonization.

Our analysis addressed three contexts of alliance building: 1) alliances fostered by Indigenous women’s leaders and organizations in support of decades-long challenges to gender-based discrimination and membership restrictions enforced through the Indian Act; 2) diverse alliances forged by Shoal Lake 40 First Nation to move forward its struggle to end a decades-long boil water advisory and state-imposed geographic isolation; and 3) over four decades of Indigenous solidarity efforts on the part of churches and church coalitions now carried out under the umbrella of KAIROS Canada. Looking within and across these three contexts, we attended to shifts in the types of alliances that are fostered, the terms and conditions of their initiation and development, their evolving relational contexts, and the types of discourses, knowledges, and strategies that they mobilize. We also highlighted lessons learned by alliance participants over the long haul, noting the challenges they face, the principles that guide them, the ways they negotiate power and difference, and the insights they gain along the way. Insights from this study inform a more comprehensive research project comparing how these and newer alliances are playing out across Canada in the post-TRC era.

Exploring the interplay of long-term settler actives narratives and reconciliation discourse in post-TRC initiatives (UW SSHRC Explore Grant, 2021-2023; Principal Researcher in ongoing research)

This study includes an environmental scan of decolonial learning initiatives emerging post-2015 to expand and update previous research exploring the learning processes of long-term settler supporters of Indigenous struggles over land and sovereignty. 

The project considers how processes of coming to decolonial learning that predate the predominance of reconciliation discourse in Canada continue to manifest in educational and activist initiatives unfolding in the wake of Canada’s TRC.  

Grants and awards

UW SSHRC Explore Grant (2021-2023; extended to 2024)

Renison Research Grant (2021-2022; extended to 2024)

Renison Research Grant (2020-2021)

UW SSHRC Exchange Grant (2019)

Renison Research Grant (2019-2020)

SSHRC Insight Development Grant (2018-2020; extended to 2024)

Gold Medal for Academic Excellence, Wilfrid Laurier University—Faculty of Social Work (2014)

Ontario Graduate Scholarship (2010)

SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship (2007-2009)