INTRODUCTION.

Weytk, Jacob Boisclair ren skwekwst, te Kamloops re st7’ e7kwen. Hello, I am Jacob Boisclair and I’m from Kamloops. In my first two years of study at TRU, I did not participate in any extracurricular activities. However, knowing that I wanted to pursue graduate studies after completing my undergraduate degree, I knew I needed to start exploring opportunities on campus. Since then, I have engaged in multiple avenues of research at TRU. In recognition of this, I have been given a position as a Research Ambassador at the Office of the Vice-President Research for the 2023/2024 academic year. Research opportunities I have participated in include being a summer research assistant at Whispering Pines/ Clinton Indian Band in the summer of 2023, a participant in the Knowledge Makers’ Program where my work is being published in their journal, being a UREAP (Undergraduate Research Experience Award Program) recipient supervised by Dr. Jenna Woodrow, participating in a directed studies course focused on articulating and describing women in performative comedy in the context of philosophy, as well as several presentations of my work at conferences hosted at TRU and internationally. A central theme of all of my work is a basis in Indigenous contexts of knowing and being in the world. Particularly, I’ve published work on the infringement of Indigenous rights as it relates to mining, and conducted research on Indigenous ontological, epistemic, and metaphysical systems. In my UREAP, for instance, my research is focused on delineating constituent factors of indigeneity as recognized by particular nations.

Foreword:

While my UREAP is still under development, elements of the research process, the application of research methodologies, and source materal analysis are apparent in sections of my current draft. I have chosen to include excerpts of these drafts due to their relevance, but I felt it to be important to note that they are drafts and not part of a completed work.

Research Proposals:

The UREAP application form that I created won me a spot in this competitive program. As such, it outlines the research I intend to conduct and the manner by which I intend to do it.

As part of Dr. Nina Johnson’s ENGL 4770 class, we were asked to create HopePunk Projects. Part of this endeavor included project proposals; I have included mine here. I was asked to present the finished project at a Guest Lecture event at TRU where Dr. Elin Kelsey was the keynote speaker.

UREAP-ApplicationDownload
HopePunk-Project-ProposalDownload

Relevant Papers

Engaging with source materials can range from close-reading analysis of singular texts to discussing relevant intertextual notions between a plethora of sources. My essay on Kant’s notion of human nature was accepted to be presented at Pacific University’s Undergraduate Philosophy Conference in 2023. I also presented my essay on Indigenous phenomenological ontology at TRU’s Philosophy, History, and Politics conference in 2024.

Kants-Notion-of-Human-NatureDownload
Being-with-the-Land-A-Perception-of-Indigenous-Phenomenological-OntologyDownload

UREAP Application and Draft Except:

As this work is based in a Humanities subject, methodology for research looks different than in the sciences or social sciences. As such, the methodologies for this research are centrally focused on the way the source material is analyzed and presented, as well as my positionality as a researcher, rather than outlining processes for obtaining data.

UREAP-Application-1Download
Introduction-Positionality-MethodologyDownload

Samples of Completed Works:

The first of these works is an essay I wrote in Dr. Wesley Furlotte’s ENGL 4770 class. While simple, it provides an insight into the process of applying concepts from one article in the analysis of another work.

My second piece in this section is the essay I wrote that will be published in the Knowledge Makers journal. With such a complex issue, I had to synthesize and collect data from many sources to describe and analyze the events which inform the purposes of this paper.

Uncanny-in-Poes-_The-Black-Cat_-1946Download
An-analysis-of-Jurisprudence-involving-the-Mount-Polley-Mine-DisasterDownload

Research Dissemination:

I presented the slideshow at the 2024 Coyote Brings the Food Conference at TRU. This presentation was made to disseminate my paper for the Knowledge Makers journal, and to present the information within it in a more accessible, engaging way. As part of the original project, I printed and handed out pamphlets with condensed information on the subject of the paper to students on campus to raise awareness of the disaster.

The third item uploaded in this section is the first piece I had ever presented at a conference, which was disseminated at the 2023 Philosophy, History, and Politics Conference at TRU.

The-Mount-Polley-Mine-DisasterDownload
Mount-Polley-Mine-Disaster-PamphletDownload
Aristotelian-Substance-ModelDownload

REFLECTIVE ESSAY.

Reflection-EssayDownload

I respectfully acknowledge that I work, learn, and live on the unceded, unconquered, ancestral, and traditional lands of the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc, within the Secwepemcúl’ecw.