Assistant professor Michael Fabris has received the 2023 Robin P. Armstrong Memorial Prize for Excellence in Indigenous Studies.
The prize, awarded by the Canadian Association of Geographers, aims to recognize and promote “excellence in applied research related to First Nation/Aboriginal/Indigenous peoples in Canada.” It is given in recognition of masters or PhD thesis work.
Dr. Fabris has received this year’s award in recognition of the work conducted for their PhD thesis, ‘The dispossession(s) of law: Indigenous peoples, Canada, and articulated jurisdictions‘, which was completed at UBC Geography.
In it, he sought to answer the question: ‘What are the limits to attempts by Indigenous peoples to articulate our own forms of law through the languages and institutions of settler law?’
Through this process, he examined several case studies, including the Piikani Nation’s efforts to challenge the Oldman River Dam, which was constructed in the 1980s.
