Lara Rosenoff Gauvin

Dr. Lara Rosenoff Gauvin is a mother, activist scholar, and Associate Professor of Socio-Cultural Anthropology at the University of Manitoba. She is currently co-chair of the University of Manitoba's Respectful Rematriation and Repatriation Ceremony. The Ceremony is proactive, Indigenous Elder-led, and concerns Ancestors, belongings, human biological materials and tangible and intangible cultural expressions that were stewarded by the University without proper consent and protocol. She also continues longstanding relationships with one extended family in Acoliland, Northern Uganda, working together on radio-based public dialogues about Acoli Indigenous governance, law, and land rights' protections.

Experience as a Trudeau scholar

The Trudeau Scholarship has challenged me with possibility- the possibility of how I practice research, the possibility of engagement, the possibility of collaboration, and the possibility of knowledge mobilization. This space and support for visioning what research should and can do, and how one should and can do it, has been formative in my development as an academic, but also more generally as a human being.

I found much of the impetus, courage, and guts to engage in the challenge of possibility through my relationships with other Trudeau Scholars, Mentors and Fellows, as well as with host community members, and advocacy and academic allies found around the world. These relationships were greatly facilitated by the Annual Travel and Networking Allowance.

The academic world can be frightfully oppressive and competitive, squashing out the ideal of a collaborative pursuit of knowledge to better the world. Yet, it is in the Trudeau community that this ideal is consistently pursued. This challenge, and the generous financial, social, and intellectual support to engage with it, is the legacy of my Trudeau Scholarship.