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My name is Giselle Dias, (Niigaanii Zhaawshko Giizhigokwe) and I am a mixed-race Métis scholar, activist, and educator with roots in the Red River (Hodgson and Fidler). My ancestors are also from India, the Seychelles, and Europe (France, England, Scotland, and Ireland). I am currently living on the Haldimand Tract, the traditional lands of the Neutral, Anishinaabe, and Haudenosaunee Peoples. I also identify as an Indigenous queer, and disabled community organizer, writer, and educator.
My work spans over three decades, focusing on penal abolition, prisoners' rights, and transformative justice. I have worked in several community-based organizations such as the Prisoners' Arts Foundation (PAF), Rittenhouse: A New Vision, Prisoners with HIV/AIDS Support Network (PASAN) and the CounterFIT harm reduction program at South Riverdale Community Health Center. Through my activism, I have organized with the Prisoners’ Justice Action Committee (PJAC), Prisoners’ Justice Day (PJD) and the Prisoners’ Justice Film Festival in Toronto and London, Ontario. I was also a Psychotherapist in private practice from 2011-2018 where I worked from an anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, sex positive, harm reduction framework.
Academically, I have earned a BA in Women’s and Gender Studies from Carleton University, a Master’s in Sociology from York University, and a MSW in the Indigenous Field of Study from Wilfrid Laurier University. In 2024, I completed my PhD in Social Work, exploring "Indigenous Wholistic Abolition: Visioning Indigenous Queer, Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Futures". I worked at the Centre for Indigegogy: Indigenous Wholistic Professional Development from its inception in 2017 as the Program Coordinator, Re-search Associate and was the Director of the Centre from 2024-2025.
My re-search focuses on Indigenous wholistic abolition, Indigegogy, decolonization and Land based learning. My work integrates Indigenous wholism, Indigiqueer feminist theory, and Land-based practices to advance decolonizing efforts within academic and activist spaces. My work continues to bridge academic scholarship with community activism, advocating for Indigenous sovereignty, decolonization, Indigenous wholistic abolition, Land Back and community justice frameworks.
My re-search interests include:
- Indigenous activism including abolition, land defense, transformative justice, and decolonizing anti-carceral practice.
- Indigenous re-search,
- Wholism,
- Indigegogy
- Decolonizing and Indigenizing movements and practice
- Indigenous queer, Two-Spirit, Indigiqueer feminist theory
- Land based practices
- Indigenous disability
Current Re-Search Projects
2025 – Current. Principal Investigator. Mapping Carceral Ecologies: Indigenous Land Relations & Abolitionist Futures. Faculty of Social Work, Wilfrid Laurier University. SSHRC Funded. ($5000)
2023 – Current. Co-Applicant. The Work of Stories in the World. Co-Principal Investigators: Dr. Carla Rice & Dr. Julia Gruson-Wood. Re*Vision Centre for Art and Social Justice. SSHRC Insight Grant ($328,000)
2023 – Current. Co-Principal Investigator with Dr. Jessica Hutchison. Stories of Unpacking Colonialism: A Decolonizing Journey’s Documentary. Centre for Indigegogy, Faculty of Social Work, Wilfrid Laurier University. ($49,290)
2018-2022. Principal Investigator. Indigenous Wholistic Abolition: Visioning Indigenous Queer, Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Futures. SSHRC Graduate Scholarship Grant ($105,000)
Conference Presentations
Leduc, T., Hachey, S., & Dias, G. (June 2023) Land-based Teachings in Social Work. The Spirit in Social Work Conference. Halifax.
Dias, G. (June 2023). Dear Mom. A digital story of decolonizing (2022). Written and created by G. Dias with support from Naty Trembly. Screened June 2023 (planned) as part of the SSHRC insight funded – Decolonizing Journeys: Learning about decolonizing through Indigenous research and digital story work project. https://revisioncentre.ca/projects/decolonizing-journeys
Dias, G., & Hutchison, J. (October 2022). Decolonization and Anti-Carceral Social Work. Presentation at Canadian Association of Social Work Education.
Fraser, A & Dias, G. (October 2022). Indigeneity, Disability & Land-based Learning, Education and Healing. Presentation at Canadian Association of Social Work Education.
Dias, G. (2017, July). Indigenous justice and penal abolition. International Conference on Penal Abolition 17. University of Massachusetts, New Bedford, MA. [Workshop]
Saleh-Hanna, V., Alston, A., Kosmetatos, J., Bey, H., Shaqur – Myrick, M. & Dias, G. (2017, July). This is war: Criminal justice as occupation in the afterlife of colonial conquest. Moderator at the International Conference on Penal Abolition, University of Massachusetts, New Bedford, MA.
Community Engaged Scholarship
Dias, G. (March 2024). “Dear Grief” as part of Grief Refracted: Digital Storytelling as a Liberatory Praxis (2022). Written and created by G. Dias with support from Hannah Fowlie. Screened March 13th, 2024.
Summers, C., Simpson, C., Dias, G. & Williams, B. (January, 2024). Incarceration & Justice. Atlohsa Family Healing Services, Indigenous Initatives, Wampum Learning Lodge. London, ON
Dias, G. (February 2023). Dear Mom. A digital story of decolonizing (2022). Written and created by G. Dias with support from Naty Trembly. Screened May 2022 and June 2023 (planned) as part of the SSHRC insight funded – Decolonizing Journeys: Learning about decolonizing through Indigenous research and digital story work project. https://revisioncentre.ca/projects/decolonizing-journeys
Thomas, D., Jacobs, N., Leddy, L., Leduc, T., Dias, G., & Kennedy Kish (Belle), B. (September, 2022). Book Launch for Teachings from spruce: The nature of prisons. In Jacobs, N. Gaehowako & Leduc, T. B. (Eds.), Ǫ da gaho dḛ:s: Reflecting on our journeys. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press. Indigenous Initiatives, Laurier University. Brantford.
Dias, G. (June, 2022). Decolonizing Social Work. Ontario Association of Social Workers. Zoom Presentation.
Ware, S., & Dias, G. (May 10-15, 2022). Land-based retreat for Positive Deviants. Wolf Willow Institute for Systems Learning. Toronto Island, ON.
Ware, S., Dias, G., & Hudson, S. (April 2022). Building Abolitionist Communities. Toronto Biennial of Art, Toronto, ON.
Dias, G., & Hutchison, J. (2021, September). Transformative justice. Presentation for the Canadian Association of Social Workers. [Webinar]
Hutchison, J., & Dias, G. (2021, October). Defunding the police. Presentation for the Canadian Association of Social Workers. [Webinar]
Simpson, L., Dias, G., & Davis, R. (2021, April). Revolution and resurgence: Black & Indigenous solidarity in anti-prison organizing. We Do This Until We are Free. Panel Presentation for Black Lives Matter Bookclub. [Webinar]
Palmater, P., Whitebird, W., Twins, J., & Dias, G. (2020, April). Indigenous justice and penal abolition. Panel Presentation for the Toronto Prisoners’ Rights Project. [Webinar]
- 2024 – Award For Outstanding Work at the Graduate Level
- 2022 – Leading Women, Leading Girls, Building Communities, NDP Community Award
- 2021 – Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Scholarship
- 2021 – Graduate Doctoral Studentship
- 2021 – Ontario Graduate Scholarship
- 2018 – SSHRC CGS Doctoral Scholarship
- 2018 – Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Scholarship
- 2018 – Lyle S. Hallman Faculty of Social Work Academic Achievement Award
I prioritize Indigenous students, utilizing Indigenous methodologies.
Dias, G. (2024). "Indigenous Wholistic Abolition: Visioning Indigenous Queer, Two-Spirit & Indigiqueer Futures". Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive). 2669.
https://scholars.wlu.ca/etd/2669
Dias, G. (2022). Teachings from spruce: The nature of prisons. In Jacobs, N. Gaehowako & Leduc, T. B. (Eds.), Ǫ da gaho dḛ:s: Reflecting on our journeys. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press.
Kahn, M., Dias, G., Thompson, A. (2021). Mapping out Indigenous and racialized critical community-based perspectives and experiences in the time of COVID. From the Trenches. Special issue of Intersectionalities: A Global Journal of Social Work Analysis, Research, Polarity, & Practice, 9(1), 188–198.
Absolon, K., & Dias, G. (2020). Indigegogy. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Social Work. Oxford University Press. doi: dx.doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199975839.013.1354
Ware, S. M. & Dias, G. (2020). Revolution and resurgence: Dismantling the prison industrial complex through Black and Indigenous solidarity. In Diverlus, R. & Ware, S. M. (Eds.), Until we are free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada (pp. 32–56). Regina, SK: University of Regina Press.
Dias, G. (2018). Life and death in prison. In Burton, N., Ruzsa, J., Goldberg, H., & Dias, G. (Eds.), Free in prison: The life of Peter Collins (pp. 87–91). Toronto, ON: Ad Astra Comix. [Book Chapter]
Ware, S. M., Rusza, J., & Dias, G. (2014). It can’t be fixed because it’s not broken. In Liat, B, Chapman, C., & Carey, A. C. (Eds.), Disability incarcerated: Imprisonment and disability in the United States and Canada (pp. 163–184). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Social Justice and Transformative Social Work Practices (SK507)
- Indigenous Kinship Structures and Social Work Practice (SK 644)
- Indigenous Re-search Methodologies (SK645)
- Wholistic Healing Practices (SK646)
- Indigenous Knowledge’s & Theory (SK635)
- Social Action & Social Change (SK 610)