Recent graduate Jessica Hallenbeck has won the Canadian Association of Geographers’ Starkey-Robinson Award for Graduate Research on Canada for 2020.
Dr. Hallenbeck’s research, the result of an ongoing collaboration with Sahtu Dene and Coast Salish storyteller Rosemary Georgeson, looked to restore the history of Georgeson’s family, which was scattered and partially erased by the colonial occupation of their territory.
Hallenbeck and Georgeson explain the genesis and journey of their work, partnership, and the erasure of Indigenous peoples from the historical archive here.
On receipt of the award, Dr. Hallenbeck said: “I would like to acknowledge and sincerely thank Rosemary for the invitation many years ago to collaborate, and for her significant contribution to this dissertation, without which none of this would have been possible. Rosemary and I would like to thank the ones who have gone before us for sharing their stories and knowledge with us; Billy, Tlahoholt, and Sar-Augh-Ta-Naogh.
I am so very thankful to my wonderfully supportive committee: supervisor Geraldine Pratt, committee members Dory Nason, Glen Coulthard, Leonie Sandercock, and Kate Hennessy. I’m incredibly grateful to the CAG for this honor.”
Dr. Hallenbeck will be continuing her work in the fall, in an SSHRC postdoc at SFU’s School of Interactive Art and Technology, with postdoctoral supervisor Kate Hennessy. She, Georgeson and Hennessy will be working to create a museum exhibition from the doctoral research.
