Hannah Quinn
Why did you decide to pursue a graduate degree?
After working in the not-for-profit sector on social justice issues for a few years, I decided that I wanted to challenge myself academically and focus on a research project that I was passionate about. While my passion has always been community-based and practical work, I was compelled to gain a more comprehensive theoretical grounding in anthropology. I saw the university as an opportunity to build on my existing projects and to develope and focus my scope from an academic perspective.
Why did you decide to study at UBC?
The department of anthropology at UBC has a long history of community-based work with and for indigenous communities. I was keen to explore the long-established existing resources and networks at this university.
Learn more about Hannah's research
My MA research focuses on the increased rate of sexual violence experienced by indigenous women in northern British Columbia as a consequence of construction camps built for liquid-natural-gas pipeline projects. Through this work, I am contributing to scholarship that is critical of presumed notions of ‘vulnerability,’ while critically examining the structural systems that normalize the experience of sexual violence for indigenous women. During my fieldwork, I have worked closely with a group of women to explore notions of sexual consent, sexual abuse, and policy measures that may be put in place to mitigate the impacts of construction camps on indigenous women’s safety. Methodologically, I have engaged with feminist, participatory, and community-based research methods, rooted in the desire to produce research that is ethical, decolonized, and community-led. This research is driven by the desire to question the framing of indigenous women in Canada as inherently vulnerable to sexual violence and to explore how these assumptions impact their experiences and disclosure of sexual violence.