David Parent
is Metis and his family, the Monkmans, are from the historic community of Minnewaken, located in the Interlake region of Manitoba, Canada. Parent is a professor in the Departments of Native Studies and History at the University of Manitoba.Recently, he successfully defended his doctoral dissertation in Indigenous Studies and Sociology at the University of Alberta. His work is titled, “Governing Metis Indigeneity: The Settler-Colonial Dispossession and Regulation of the Metis in Mid-Twentieth Century Manitoba.”
Parents’ work seeks to methodologically trace the dispossession of Metis from lands in Manitoba throughout the mid-twentieth century by placing these dispossessions into multijurisdictional and socio-historical context. He argues that methods of population governance and taxation at the level of municipal governments played a major role in Metis removal in Manitoba and in fact normalized this process across Canada. Parent significantly challenges a dominant and singular narrative of Metis dispossession that focuses on the nineteenth century and federal policy.
Parent’s next project is to develop a twentieth century Metis lands database that Metis citizens can use to research their own family and community histories. He also has a significant interest in the ongoing development of critical Indigenous theory and the use of technological devices like drones, cellphones, and virtual reality for undertaking Indigenous studies research.
Contact Information:
• David.Parent@umanitoba.ca • 204-474-6210
Twitter: @davidnbparent