Archives - School of Interdisciplinary Studies

How Dr. Kahente Horn-Miller Is Reshaping Research—One Story at a Time

femiajidahun — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 14:13:14 +0000

For Dr. Kahente Horn-Miller, research is not something separate from life—it is something lived, carried, and shared through story.

An Indigenous scholar, educator, and longhouse knowledge keeper, Dr. Horn-Miller approaches research as a form of responsibility grounded in community, relationship, and lived experience. As Associate Vice-President of Indigenous Teaching, Learning and Research at �Ӱ�ԭ�� University and a professor in the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies, her work is redefining what research can look like—and who it is for.

“It’s my form of activism,” she says. “Through education, through research, through storytelling.”

At the centre of her work is Indigenous storytelling—not simply as a way of communicating knowledge, but as a rigorous and embodied research methodology. Her approach challenges conventional academic boundaries, insisting on care, interdependence, and self-authorship.

Her current research builds on her doctoral work, Sky Woman’s Great Granddaughters, which explored identity among Kanien’kehá:ka women from the Kahnawà:ke Mohawk community. Through narrative inquiry, she examined how colonial systems—from the Indian Act to broader political ideologies—have shaped and constrained Indigenous identity, while also documenting how women reclaim identity through kinship, community, and Indigenous ways of knowing.

A defining element of that work was her reimagining of the Sky Woman creation story. Rather than analyzing the story from a distance, Dr. Horn-Miller voiced it in the first person—embodying Sky Woman as both an ancestral figure and a methodological intervention.

What began as a research method has since evolved into a powerful solo performance piece presented in both academic and community spaces.

“It’s not just about telling our stories,” she explains. “It’s about telling them our way, on our own terms.”

By speaking from within the story, her work dissolves the boundaries between theory, narrative, and self. In doing so, it opens new possibilities for research as something relational and lived, rather than detached and purely analytical.

This emphasis on connection is central to her current thinking, particularly through the concept of “resonance.” Drawing on sociological theory while remaining grounded in Indigenous knowledge systems, Dr. Horn-Miller explores how modern life has distanced people from land, memory, and one another—and how stories, ceremonies, and shared experiences can help restore those relationships.

She is now extending this work through immersive technologies designed with the same ethic of care. Projects such as �²�’ötš��’g�ɲ�:��ó, a 360-degree longhouse experience, and Tsi tewateriweiastákwa, a virtual reality Indigenous learning space, invite participants into story in multisensory ways.

“Faculty who’ve experienced them say things like, ‘I felt it,’” she says. “And just like with the Sky Woman story, that’s the point.”

For Dr. Horn-Miller, these innovations are not about novelty, but about deepening connection—using contemporary tools to support longstanding ways of knowing.

That commitment is guided by the Haudenosaunee principle often described as thinking for the next seven generations. Whether in research, teaching, or leadership, she continually asks how today’s decisions will shape the future.

“I’m always thinking: how will this benefit our children’s children’s children?”

This perspective also informs her work at the institutional level. From developing �Ӱ�ԭ��’s Collaborative Indigenous Learning Bundles to contributing to the university’s Calls to Action, Dr. Horn-Miller works across disciplines to bring Indigenous knowledge into the academy on its own terms.

At the same time, she engages directly with the challenges shaping contemporary conversations around Indigenous identity, belonging, and appropriation. Rather than avoiding difficult discussions, she creates space for dialogue grounded in practice and care. Initiatives like the Ojigìjowewin Legal Symposium bring together scholars and community members to explore how Indigenous legal traditions can guide real-world questions around conflict, governance, and belonging.

Her work also extends into community-based research. A new mapping initiative at Kitigan Zibi will support Algonquin youth in documenting place names, stories, and ecological knowledge—often in their own language.

“These tools aren’t just maps,” she says. “They’re invitations for young people to ask their families, ‘Can you tell me about this place?’”

For Dr. Horn-Miller, this work is about more than preservation—it is about continuity. By bringing together storytelling, technology, language, and land-based knowledge, her research connects generations and challenges conventional ideas of innovation.

In doing so, she reminds us that some of the most forward-looking forms of research are rooted in the oldest relationships—between people, land, language, and story.

Read the full FASS Research Review (Page 8):

How Dr. Evelyn Namakula Mayanja Is Rethinking Resource Extraction, Violence, and Peacekeeping

femiajidahun — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 14:08:42 +0000

From smartphones to electric vehicles, many of the technologies shaping modern life depend on minerals sourced from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). But behind this global supply chain lies a far more complex and troubling reality—one that Dr. Evelyn Namakula Mayanja is working to uncover.

An interdisciplinary scholar, Dr. Mayanja’s research examines the intersections of resource extraction, conflict, and global peacekeeping, with a particular focus on African contexts. Her work sheds light on how mineral wealth—rather than fostering development—has contributed to prolonged violence, environmental destruction, and humanitarian crisis in the DRC.

The country is rich in critical resources such as copper, lithium, and cobalt—essential for green energy technologies like electric vehicle batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines—as well as gold, diamonds, and other valuable minerals. Yet this abundance has come at an extraordinary cost.

Since the late 1990s, Congolese communities have faced sustained violence, displacement, and deep insecurity, as natural resources are extracted to meet global demand. Dr. Mayanja’s research highlights how multinational corporations and global economic systems are implicated in these dynamics, often profiting from both the minerals themselves and the conditions under which they are obtained.

Witnessing these realities firsthand is what drew her to this field of study.

“I don’t know how people are going to survive in the next 10 years,” she says. “The environment on which their livelihood depends has been destroyed beyond recognition, and communities have been displaced.”

Through interviews and fieldwork in the DRC, Dr. Mayanja documents how extractive industries shape everyday life in affected communities. She situates this violence within a longer historical context, pointing to colonial patterns of exploitation that continue to influence the present.

“Violence has been used to access Congo’s resources,” she explains. “There are also issues of misgovernance, but this continues the manipulation of Africa.”

Her research also critically examines the role of international peacekeeping missions in the region. While such missions are intended to stabilize conflict zones, Dr. Mayanja argues that their impact is often more complicated.

“How can they be interested in both peace and exploiting resources at the same time?” she asks. “There is an incongruency between them. Even the word is a misnomer—how can you say they are keeping peace where it does not exist?”

Rather than relying solely on external interventions, Dr. Mayanja emphasizes the importance of locally grounded approaches to peacebuilding.

“We need Afrocentric peacebuilding, peace-making, and resource governance,” she says.

At the same time, she underscores the responsibility of international actors—particularly in enforcing regulations on mining companies operating both in the DRC and abroad. Accountability, she argues, must extend beyond borders when environmental destruction and human rights violations occur.

Looking ahead, Dr. Mayanja advocates for more inclusive and decolonial approaches to research and knowledge-sharing. She calls for greater recognition of Indigenous and community-based knowledge systems, particularly in regions where such knowledge is at risk of being lost.

“There are so many different ways of collecting and transmitting knowledge,” she notes. “Afrocentric approaches such as music, theatre, and dance can be more appropriate in some contexts.”

She also envisions universities as spaces where community voices can be heard more directly, and where lived experiences are treated as vital forms of knowledge.

“It would be so impactful to bring people from these communities here to share their stories,” she says. “Because it is not all about violence. It is not all about resources. We are humans too. We have stories to tell.”

Dr. Mayanja’s work challenges us to think more critically about the global systems we are part of—and to recognize the human stories at the heart of them.

Read the full FASS Research Review (Page 14):

Human Rights Alumna wins Rotary Peace Fellowship

femiajidahun — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 16:04:57 +0000

The Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies congratulates Sam Murray, an Alumna of the Human Rights & Social Justice program on being recently awarded the Rotary Peace Fellowship. Sam will begin a graduate degree in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Queensland in Australia.

Congratulations! and Best wishes

Two Distinguished Visiting Scholars Joining �Ӱ�ԭ��

femiajidahun — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 21:20:29 +0000

Dr. Antonia Carcelén‐Estrada and Dr. Laura Forsythe will be joining �Ӱ�ԭ�� for the 2024/25 academic year as visiting scholars.

Dr. Antonia Carcelén‐Estrada will teach Global Indigenous Knowledge-Adaptive Research Methods to Indigenous Communities while Dr. Laura Forsythe will lead a course on Métis Methodologies both in the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies.