WHAT DOES CHEYANNE DO AND WHY?

​Since 2019, Ms. Armstrong has worked with and hosted urban Indigenous folk from North America and Japan in support of their joint quest to understand how dominant expectations of being Indigenous impact processes of identity-making and belonging. They have volunteered to moderate presentations by Indigenous scholars and presented several talks on Indigenous research approaches and Indigenous histories in Canada. Most recently, they were part of formal events and dialogues aimed at 1) discussing the challenges and opportunities of decolonizing universities and 2) helping Ismaili immigrants learn about Indigenous peoples in Canada. They also created Indigenous Language children's books for a local Indigenous community and co-authored an article on the invisible labour and gender inequities women faced in academia during COVID-19 (published in American Ethnologist).

For research, Ms. Armstrong is interested in Indigenous Language and culture; Indigenous feminism; Indigenous identity-making; urban Indigenous studies; and global Indigenous world-making. They are principal investigator for Dreaming of Dunne-Za (2021—), an ethnographic and collaborative project that focuses on the histories, practices, and meaning of traditional Language within their home community of West Moberly First Nations. They ask: How has traditional language shaped and been shaped by the past and present sociocultural dynamics and experiences of Dunne-Za people in WMFN, and how is gender represented? As part of this project, Ms. Armstrong, who is also a freelance artist, will be creating visual art vignettes, depicting select community member experiences with Language reclamation. Mainly, this project seeks to explore the different ways Dunne-Za language has been used, celebrated, maintained, and displaced, and its role in Dunne-Za ‘thoughtworld’ (i.e., worldview, spirituality, values), and importantly, contribute to growing representation of what it means to be Indigenous in the twenty-first century.

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Ms. Armstrong's efforts to privilege the voices of young Indigenous peoples whose diverse experiences of Indigenous identity-making are often overlooked in public and academia, extends to all their projects. For their MA project (2019-2021), Ms. Armstrong explored Indigenous Ainu identity-making in North America and through digital spaces. Based on in-depth interviews, online observations, and data collection and analysis, they argued that whereas Ainu identity-making of those who grew up in Japan is primarily rooted in Ainu in Japan experience, American Ainu identity-making is largely informed by and rooted in North American Indigenous experience. With this comes uniquely North American-based experiences and anxieties of culture appropriation, identity gatekeeping, and Indigenous authenticity—a reality that acknowledges the precarity that comes with being of 'undocumented' Indigenous ancestry in a digitally-mediated world of colonial Indigenous criteria and community-driven high stakes legitimacy. For their BA, Hons. (2019), they explored and critiqued the use of the diaspora model in framing urban Indigenous peoples, experiences, and livelihoods. They argued the need for a more inclusive framework with respect to some urban Indigenous peoples, given that many of them, especially in Canada, are: 1) geographically not displaced; 2) have rooted cultural experiences and practices in urban environments; and 3) have fostered a sense of belonging to an urban homeland. This research spoke to the need to recognize and meaningfully engage with urban Indigenous experience and livelihoods as being authentically Indigenous and not in terms of a cultural, traditional, and land deficit.

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Through their research, writing, and teaching, and as a Queer Indigenous scholar, Ms. Armstrong strives to advocate for better and more accessible public and scholarly representations of Indigenous identity and narratives that speaks to and uplifts the diverse realities of being Indigenous and part of an ever-changing global, digital world. This means that first and foremost, Ms. Armstrong's research and efforts are aimed at being conducted for and with communities, and easily accessible (i.e., easy to find, easy to navigate, and easy to comprehend).

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