December 13, 2024
VANIER SCHOLAR JAMEY JESPERSON, A UVIC PHD CANDIDATE IN HISTORY AND CSPT, “specializes in trans histories of Indigenous and colonial North America, with a regional focus on the Pacific coast.”
Jesperson’s “goal is to re-story colonial narratives of contact between settlers and trans Indigenous people in the early colonial period, 1774-1857,” reported “UVic News” on January 12, 2024:
Jesperson’s dissertation stems from a challenge—and invitation—by Saylesh Wesley, a Stó:lō Two-Spirit Knowledge Keeper. Known as a leader of Two-Spirit resurgence, Wesley entrusted Jesperson with her oral history in the summer of 2022, now archived at the Stó:lō Library & Archives.
Jamey’s profile on UVic’s website lists a string of international awards and honours; during the 2024-25 year, she has a DEI Research Fellowship from the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR).
Her 2023 research proposal to the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships Program was entitled, “A Trans Indigenous History of the Pacific Northwest: Tracing Colonial Transphobia from Contact to Confederation, 1795-1871.”
(CSPT (Cultural, Social, and Political Thought) is an interdisciplinary program at UVic.)
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We acknowledge that the land on which we work is the unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, including the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.