Dr. Tricia McGuire-Adams is an Anishinaabekwe from Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek in the Robinson Superior Treaty territory. Dr. McGuire-Adams conducts community-driven research in Indigenous health and wellbeing and is passionate about fostering decolonial physical activity processes. She currently lives and thrives in unceded and unsurrendered Algonquin Territory, otherwise known as Ottawa. She is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education at the University of Toronto. Dr. McGuire-Adams is also an adjunct professor with the Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport & Recreation at the University of Alberta. She seeks to foster research and mentor students who advance anti-oppressive and anti-colonial theories and practices in sociocultural studies or physical cultural studies in kinesiology.
Dr. McGuire-Adams’ research challenges deficit-based narratives within Indigenous health research by centering Indigenous dibaajimowinan (stories) of physical activity, health, and wellbeing. Her research uses Indigenous Research Methodologies to study the ways Indigenous peoples and our knowledge systems create new thinking and practices to foster Indigenous Resurgence and decolonization. As a community-driven researcher, it is important for Dr. McGuire-Adams to foster reciprocal and accountable research relationships with Indigenous communities. She maintains a program of research with Indigenous community partners that looks to Anishinaabeg land-based learning, physical activities, and gikendaasowin (knowledge) about Indigenous sport and disabilities, to further amplify Indigenous peoples’ practices of health and well-being. Dr. McGuire-Adams was awarded a Tier II Canada Research Chair titled Indigenous Ganandawisiwin—Good Health—Sovereignties funded by CIHR (2019-2023). She was also awarded a Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) grant and is building an Indigenous Well-being Research Lab with the University of Toronto. She was a co-PI on a New Frontiers in Research Grant (with Dr. Peers), and two previous CIHR grants as principal investigator. She is also an active co-applicant of two SSHRC projects (Connection and Insight). Most recently, she obtained a highly competitive Spencer Foundation Grant titled Resurgent Foundation(s) within Settler Colonial Walls: Indigenous-Led Inquiry of Mandatory Indigenous Courses (2022-2025). Dr. McGuire-Adams’ engages in deep intersectional approaches through the Re-Creation Collective, and an Indigenous feminist informed Iskewak Codes of Wellness Collective. The Re-Creation Collective is a gathering of Indigenous, racialized, Muslim, 2SLGBTQUIA scholars and invested sport practitioners who have been working together to create deeply intersectional methodologies and frameworks for transforming sport into a more equitable, accessible, and affirming experience for those impacted by multiple systems of oppression. We are in various parts of Turtle Island, including Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, and Connecticut. This work has created more grants and research opportunities, including our recently awarded SSHRC Race, Gender and Diversity Initiative (2022-2025) grant titled "So what do we do now": Moving intersectionality from academic theory to recreation-based praxis. Dr. Danielle Peers is the project's director, and Dr. McGuire-Adams is co-director along with Dr. Janelle Joseph. The Iskwewak Wellness Society (also known as RAIG: Radical Academic Iskwewak Goddesses) includes Drs. Cindy Gaudet, Tricia McGuire-Adams, Lana Whiskeyjack, with Jennifer Ward-ban, and Amanda Almond. Our work brings together Indigenous women scholars to dialogue about how we navigate the challenges of academia to then create decolonial care amongst ourselves. We discuss the expectations of reconciliation labor, the emotional labor associated with it, and how we create kind, loving spaces from which to generate support; in so doing, we craft our Indigenous feminist praxis, which we call Codes of Wellness. Prior to her academic career, Dr. McGuire-Adams was involved in multiple Indigenous grassroots organizations, most recently as the former Director for the Urban Aboriginal Knowledge Network with the National Association of Friendship Centres, where she implemented and managed a 2.5-million-dollar SSHRC Partnership grant. Dr. McGuire-Adams is passionate about personal decolonization enacted through physical activity. Since 2009, she has been a volunteer kettlebell coach with 4Vitality Kettlebell Training Program with the Odawa Native Friendship Centre. She is also an active learner of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Muay Thai kickboxing at Gracie Barra. She can be reached at [email protected] |