I am a Professor of Practice in Sociology at the University of San Diego. An anthropologist by training and profession, I've done fieldwork in many countries, including Mali, Namibia, and northern Canada. I'm an expert on indigenous rights movements in Canada, Europe, and Africa. I have published ten nonfiction books that investigate such issues as digital security, surveillance, and human rights. Most recently I've written a novel about war crimes investigation, The Memory Seeker, released in February, 2023. Much of my current research uses open source investigation techniques, for which I received training in the Human Rights Center at Berkeley, the NGO Bellingcat, and the Institute for International Criminal Investigations in The Hague.
Experience
2022–present
Professor of Practice, University of San Diego
2020–2022
Distinguished James McGill Professor, McGill University
2019–2020
Visiting Professor, Harvard University
2013–2020
Pearson Chair, Law and Anthropology, McGill University
2008–2013
Professor, McGill University
2005–2008
Associate professor, McGill University
2004–2005
Visiting associate professor, McGill University
2003–2004
Visitor, Humboldt University, Berlin
2001–2003
Visitor, Åbo Akademi University, Finland
1998–2000
Research scientist, Pimicikamak Cree Nation
1994–1998
Associate professor, Harvard University
1989–1994
Assistant professor, Harvard University
1987–1989
Lecturer, Concordia University
Education
1987
Cambridge University, PhD, Social Anthropology
Publications
2023
The Memory Seeker, Black Rose Writing
2022
Narratives of Mass Atrocity (Ed. With Sarah Federman), Cambridge University Press
2020
#Human Rights, Stanford University Press
2017
Truth and Indignation: Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian Residential Schools, University of Toronto Press
2017
Palaces of Hope (Ed. With Maria Sapignoli), Cambridge University Press
2010
Public Justice and the Anthropology of Law, Cambridge University Press
2009
The Rediscovered Self: Indigenous Identity and Cultural Justice, McGill University Press
2008
Defending the Land: Sovereignty and Forest Life in James Bay Cree Society, Prentice Hall
2004
A World Beyond Difference, Blackwell
2003
The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Identity, University of California Press
2000
Spirit Wars: Native North American Religions in the Age of Nation Building, University of California Press
Grants and Contracts
2020
SSHRC Insight Grant
Role:
PI
Funding Source:
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
2012
Tier 1 Canada Research Chair
Role:
PI
Funding Source:
Canada Research Chairs
2011
SSHRC Insight Grant
Role:
PI
Funding Source:
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada