Master’s Student Oliver Eastwood awarded SSHRC CGS-Master’s Scholarship

Oliver’s research focuses on grassroots responses to climate change and biodiversity loss, focusing on the politics of community engagement in conservation. The focus of Oliver’s Master’s research is on Indigenous conservation politics in coastal British Columbia, which seeks to understand First Nations’ conservation practices within the wider context of Indigenous sovereignty and reconciliation. This project critically examines human-nature relations in the era of the climate crisis, and explore methodological and ethical approaches for anti-oppressive research by settler academics.

Alongside his work on political ecology, Oliver is affiliated with the Third Generation Project, a think-tank based at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. He is currently engaged in archive-based research funded by the Scottish Government which examines the historical persecution of Scottish Gypsy/Travellers under the ‘Tinker Experiment’, a set of 20th-century policies on forced housing and child removal of Travellers in Scotland.

Oliver is honoured to be recognized for this scholarship and wishes to thank the Department of Political Science and his supervisor, Dr. Michelle Dion, for their ongoing support.