Congrats to Vanessa Hodge on being awarded a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship! This SSHRC fellowship will enable Vanessa to continue her excellent research while she studies political science at Carleton.
About Vanessa’s research:
Vanessa’s doctoral research examines the relationship between official language policy in Canada and the barriers Indigenous federal workers (IFW) face in terms of their work experiences, professional opportunities, and means to revitalize Indigenous languages. To explore this under-researched topic, and to understand how the Official Languages Act (OLA) interacts with, supports, or undermines legislation protecting rights and obligations for Indigenous languages, Vanessa combines Indigenous research methods (e.g., sharing circles) with document and policy analysis. Specifically, her research seeks to answer two questions: 1) How does the implementation of the OLA and the recently passed Bill C-13 amending the OLA affect IFW? And 2) What effects, if any, has recent federal legislation regarding Indigenous cultural rights and federal commitments to reconciliation had on IFW’s language-of-work environment? In answering these questions, Vanessa hopes to improve the language-of-work rights of IFW in the spirit of reconciliation and for the betterment of federal public service and Indigenous-settler relations in Canada. Vanessa’s research is timely since on June 20, 2023, the amendments to the OLA received royal assent, yet the potential ramifications of these amendments on IFW and Indigenous languages are ignored despite Canada’s commitments to Indigenous linguistic and cultural rights and despite the United Nations declaration that 2022 to 2032 is the international decade of Indigenous languages.