Assistant Professor
Joshua Manitowabi (BA McMaster University, MA McMaster University, PHD Brock University) is an assistant professor of Indigenous history. He is an Indigenous political historian who studies how power, colonialism, authority and governance work across different Indigenous cultures and societies through various forms of politics that impact First Nations. His research has centered on Indigenous histories and Indigenous education. His main research interests are Indigenous knowledge, Traditional Ecological knowledge, Treaties, Indigenous mapping, Critical Cartography, Wampum and diplomacy, Empires, States, Indigenous people’s sovereignty, Indigenous K-12 Education, Indigenous political histories, Colonialism, Racial capitalism, Environmentalism and the Climate Crisis.
Josh’s master’s thesis, It sometimes speaks to us: Decolonizing Education by Utilizing Our Elders’ Knowledge, explored the experiences and recommendations of elders in introducing Indigenous knowledge and teaching methods into the curricula of Anishinaabe schools. His doctoral dissertation, Manitoulin Island Treaties: Anishinaabe Diplomacy, Agency, and Persistence, is an ethnohistoric study of Odawa agency and perspectives regarding 18th and 19th century treaties made with the British Crown. Josh’s publications include Wii Niiganabying (Looking Ahead): Rearticulating Indigenous Control of Education in the Turtle Island Journal of Indigenous Health and a review of Structures of Indifference: An Indigenous Life and Death in a Canadian City in the Canadian Journal for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine. His current research project in collaboration with other Indigenous scholars is on the protection of water in First Nations communities. Josh has served as history consultant with Nelson Education on new primary and secondary education social studies textbooks and as a historical researcher and designer for Kenjgewin Teg Educational Institute in conjunction with the Truth and Reconciliation Report request for a post-secondary course on treaties. Josh is a member of the Indigenous scholars’ Writers Circle with the First Nations with Schools Collective.
Josh’s scholarship interests are directed toward providing historical evidence for attaining equity in treaty interpretation and in economics, education, and healthcare. His interests also include using ethnohistory in a re-examination of Pontiac’s War, the 1764 Treaty of Niagara, Indigenous participation in the War of 1812, and Indigenous peoples’ political movements that organized in opposition to European colonialism during the 18th century.
Josh is an Odawa and Potawatomi, Bear clan, member of the Wikwemikong Unceded First Nation. He is the recipient of several awards. Among them are the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Award, Bluma Appel Award Scholarship, and the Harvey Longboat Major Scholarship. He is a current member of the Aboriginal Research Advisory Circle, and a past member of the President’s Advisory Committee on Human Rights, Equity, and Decolonization at Brock University.