{"id":63586,"date":"2020-01-29T15:18:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-29T20:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=63586"},"modified":"2020-05-12T13:08:19","modified_gmt":"2020-05-12T17:08:19","slug":"faculty-focus-why-robyn-bourgeois-is-an-open-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2020\/01\/faculty-focus-why-robyn-bourgeois-is-an-open-book\/","title":{"rendered":"FACULTY FOCUS: Why Robyn Bourgeois is an open book"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: Faculty Focus is a monthly series that highlights faculty whose compelling passions, innovative ideas and various areas of expertise help weave together the fabric of Brock University\u2019s vibrant community. For more from the series, click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Robyn Bourgeois is many things \u2014 an academic, activist, mother, partner, survivor, to name a few.<\/p>\n

Perhaps more than anything, the tattoo-clad, leather-loving assistant professor in Brock University\u2019s Department of Women\u2019s and Gender Studies is unapologetically herself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m pretty much an open book,\u201d says Bourgeois, who is originally from the Syilx and Splats\u2019in territories of British Columbia. \u201cI\u2019m a badass, and I want to be the best version of myself. That means there has to be the tattoos and this working-class vernacular.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Bourgeois\u2019 work focuses on Indigenous feminisms, violence against Indigenous women and girls, and Indigenous women\u2019s political activism and leadership. She also researches sex trafficking and sexual exploitation and is currently working on a survivor-led research project with the YWCA of Niagara.<\/p>\n

As a mixed-race Cree woman who is a survivor of sex trafficking, Bourgeois\u2019 work is deeply personal.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy research is a hard conversation,\u201d she says. \u201cI got a second chance in my life and decided I would use it to try and stop what happened to me from happening to other people. I try to be the person I needed in my darkest hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2018, Bourgeois testified for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. She credits her culture with saving her, keeping her Indigenous heritage and teachings at the centre of her self-care plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy story is really muddy and dark, because not only did I survive sex trafficking, but I was also an opioid addict,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen you\u2019ve seen the worst in the world, and survived it, everything else in life kind of pales in comparison. A lot of things don\u2019t bug me. I\u2019m like, \u2018I\u2019m alive, I\u2019m free\u2026 I can deal with this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

She also has a strong support system, which includes her family, a sisterhood of survivors, as well as families of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.<\/p>\n

Bourgeois was the first person in her family to go to university. She says she carved a space for herself in academia, but didn\u2019t always feel like she belonged.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember meeting people who had either gone to private schools or had families with access to post-secondary,\u201d says Bourgeois of her time as an undergraduate student at Okanagan University College. \u201cThey would talk about all these authors and I felt so far behind the knowledge they had.”<\/p>\n

Desperate to fit in, she took a summer off from working \u2014 costing her \u201cdearly\u201d \u2014 just to read the books her peers talked about.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until she started her PhD in Social Justice Education at the University of Toronto that things started to change. For the first time in her entire academic career, she was no longer the only Indigenous person in her classes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve found over the years that the more I was true to myself \u2014 the more I was the \u2018real Robyn\u2019 \u2014 people responded to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When an opportunity to be an assistant professor at Brock came up, she decided to go all-in as the \u201ctrue, badass Robyn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her ability to be embraced as her true self is one of her favourite things about being woven into the University community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember going to the interview for Brock and I was totally rock and roll,\u201d she says. \u201cI had my leather jacket on. I wore jeans. I decided not to be anything other than myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of Bourgeois\u2019 recent accomplishments at the University include being a recipient of the 2019 Chancellor\u2019s Chair for Teaching Excellence<\/a>, Faculty of Social Sciences Award for Excellence in Teaching<\/a> and Accessibility and Inclusion Recognition Award<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrauma became a source of strength for me,\u201d Bourgeois says. \u201cIt\u2019s a journey. I\u2019ve got this chance, this education, this room full of people who listen to me. I just go with it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robyn Bourgeois is many things \u2014 an academic, activist, mother, partner, survivor, to name a few. Perhaps more than anything, the tattoo-clad, leather-loving assistant professor in the Department of Women\u2019s and Gender Studies is unapologetically herself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":63590,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,3319,6833,1,4,38],"tags":[8634,4226,6375,6056,31,1426],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63586"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63586"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65829,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63586\/revisions\/65829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}