Michelle Thompson recently defended her doctoral dissertation, nominated for a Senate Medal for Outstanding Academic Achievement. Entitled Material and Digital Identity Negotiation of Francophone Music Artists: Decolonizing Diversity-Focused Festivals in Canada, the dissertation is a multisite digital ethnography of some of Canada’s diversity-focused music festivals. Michelle explores the way festival organizations commodify and present racially marginalized francophone artists, both on the stage and on social media. She also examines the ways music artists negotiate their fluid and hybrid identities and use their tactical agency to challenge the compartmentalization of the music industry and resist cultural hegemony. Michelle will continue to write about resistance work and marginalization in French Canada and work as a freelance not-for-profit consultant. She also teaches part time at the University of Ottawa’s department of History.