About Shane N. Young

I am a social worker, educator, PhD Candidate (Trent), and Joseph-Armand Bombardier Scholar of Mi'kmaw and Newfoundland settler ancestry. I am a member of the Qalipu First Nation on the southwestern coast of Newfoundland (E'sukatijk Walne'k - Lourdes/Clam Bank Cove), where I was born and raised and have been living in Tkaronto since 2006.

 
I am an Assistant Professor with the Faculty of Community Service, School of Social Work, and the Academic Coordinator of the Indigenous Knowledges and Experiences Certificate with Toronto Metropolitan University (formally Ryerson University). 

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My professional social work practice has been in educational and community-based settings. I have a strong background in building relationships with service groups and organizations in the broader community to provide services to diverse populations. My work has included people that experience systematic marginalization and oppression in areas such as Deaf culture, homelessness, mental health and addictions, child welfare, and Indigenous communities.

 

My primary research focuses are critical Indigenous studies, Urban Indigenous identities, colonial and decolonization theories, Indigenous research and knowledge methodologies, and Indigeneity. My doctoral research focuses on developing and maintaining Mi'kmaw identities on the Island of Newfoundland. Further, emphasizing the impacts of colonial interferences on Indigenous identities through processes of settler colonialism and unearthing ways in which resurgence can create personal and cultural sovereignty.

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Even though I have spent the last decade in Tkaronto, I continue to maintain a connection to my home and community in Ktaqmkuk (Newfoundland). Moreover, I own this one truth, the fabric of my being is irrefutably made up of all the ancestors that have come before me and those who are yet to come. My responsibility is to bring my history back to life, a life that was stolen but never forgotten. My truth is the sum of who I am, what I know, and the journey I walk daily with kindness, love, and respect.

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Msit No'kmaq (All My Relations),

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