Doctoral Fellow, 2007-08 | Department of History

Doctoral candidate, Department of History, University of Toronto.

Victoria Freeman’s work is motivated by the moral question of what could constitute a just relationship between indigenous people and settler populations in North America. Her dissertation, titled “People without History/A City Without Roots: Indigeneity, Settler Colonialism and Historical Memory in Toronto”, explores the changing ways in which Toronto’s Indigenous and colonial past has been remembered and represented by Toronto residents of Aboriginal, non-Aboriginal, and mixed heritage. She also investigates the ethical issues involved in doing research and writing history about Indigenous peoples and communities, particularly in relation to Indigenous knowledge and differing epistemologies.

Freeman’s research builds upon her 2000 book, Distant Relations: How My Ancestors Colonized North America (McClelland & Stewart), which explored her family’s historical involvement in colonialism in Canada and the US. Her academic publications include “Indigenous Haunting in Settler Colonial Spaces: The Activism of Indigenous Ancestors in Toronto”, forthcoming in Phantom Pasts, Indigenous Presence: Native Ghosts in North American Culture and History, eds. Coll Thrush and Colleen Boyd (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008); “Attitudes toward Miscegenation in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, 1860-1914” in Native Studies Review, Vol. 16, No. 1, 2005; and “Voices of the Parents: The Shoal Lake Anishinabe and Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School 1902-1929”, in Native Voices in Research, ed. Jill Oakes (Winnipeg: Native Studies Press, University of Manitoba, 2003). Freeman is also active in community organizing aimed at building stronger relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities. She was a member of the national organizing committee for Re-envisioning Relationships: Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal Alliances and Coalitions for Indigenous Rights, Social and Environmental Justice, held at Trent University in November 2006 and has helped to organize and/or has spoken at many cross-cultural dialogues on Aboriginal issues. She is also the founder of Turning Point: Native Peoples and Newcomers On-Line (www.turning-point.ca).

Freeman has won, inter alia, the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (2006-07), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Fellowship (2003-07) and the Margaret s. McCullough Scholarship in Canadian Historical Research (2007-08).