Keira Loukes

Keira is an Assistant Professor at Lakehead University's School of Outdoor Recreation, Parks, and Tourism. She holds a PhD from the University of Ottawa and specializes in collaborative research on local food systems with First Nations in Treaty 9. Her work focuses on local community food security, food sovereignty, and traditional food access, emphasizing the importance of land restitution. She applies decolonial feminist theories, community-based participation and Indigenous methodologies in her research to question the ways in which structures of power and systems of knowing shape economic, ecological, political, community, and personal relationships to land, and by extension, our food. She explores these dynamics through community-led food initiatives in northern Ontario focusing on increasing traditional (i.e. moose, fish, geese, manoomin) and alternative (i.e. home gardens) food access.