Gina Starblanket is an Associate Professor in the School of Indigenous Governance at the University of Victoria and is co-editor of the journal of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAIS). She is Cree/Saulteaux and a member of the Star Blanket Cree Nation in Treaty 4. She studies Indigenous–settler political relations with a specific focus on Indigenous politics in the prairies, the politics of treaty implementation and the politics of gender and feminism. Her fellowship research project is titled Treaty: Utopic Rhetoric, Dystopic Practice. Gina is the 2025-26 JHI Distinguished Visiting Indigenous Faculty Fellow.
What are your main research interests?
I research and write about Indigenous governance, and my research is specifically grounded in the context of prairie Indigenous political life. I’m generally concerned with the forms of violence that are perpetuated through Indigenous–settler political relations, specifically how they can arise and become normalized when treaties are distorted and misinhabited by settler governments and societies.
What project are you working on at the JHI and why did you choose it?
My project for the JHI looks at the current terrain of treaty relations in Canada and specifically in the prairies. I’m specifically interested in how different orientations to treaty can give rise to and legitimatize a spectrum of relationships, from appallingly violent forms to conditions of mutual flourishing.
How has your JHI Fellowship experience been so far?
Being a JHI Fellow has been a fantastic experience so far. Networks of trustful dialogue and knowledge exchange are so rare yet so vital for anyone who aims to do transformative work within the academy. Being part of the JHI has made me feel a sense of belonging and mattering within a robust, dynamic intellectual community in which our ideas are not only respected but advanced through difference, not in spite of it.
Why do you believe the humanities are important?
I always appreciate the chance to have dedicated time and space to engage in-depth with ideas and angles that we might not otherwise encounter within our disciplinary silos. This has the effect of stretching our intellectual flexibility and range, pulling our thinking in generative directions, and enabling forms of connection and collaboration that might not otherwise be possible.
Can you share something you read/watched/listened to recently that you enjoyed/were inspired by?
Yes! Tasha Hubbard’s film Meadowlarks, which is based on her documentary Birth of a Family. It’s a story about four Crees who were separated at birth and reconnect in their adult years for a weekend gathering in Banff, Canada. What I love about this film is how gracefully it depicts the complex, layered, and continuous nature of both relational disconnection and growth. It does a great job of challenging the binary frames through which Indigenous peoples are often represented; that is, either as damaged or as healing, when in fact many of us could be qualified in both ways. It also illuminates the enduring nature of both Indigeneity and the colonial condition; both are embodied and remembered, neither can be vacated in an instant, and both require long-term, intentional efforts to transform.
What's a fun fact about you?
Mick Jagger once called me a rock star!