Partner, Pacific Heritage Research and Consulting
Joanne is a consulting archaeologist and anthropologist based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her practice supports First Nations communities reclaiming control over their heritage, territories, and economies, and strives to incorporate the ideals of social justice into resource sector work. She is particularly interested in community-based policy development, planning, and training that integrate local protocol and knowledge, and encourages the use and development of Indigenized policy to strengthen engagement and maximize economic opportunity.
Joanne’s recent work facilitating community-led traditional knowledge studies applies the tools of social science to create narratives of ethno-history that relate historical and contemporary land use and occupancy to Aboriginal rights, title and interests. She aims to tailor cultural heritage studies to promote Indigenous viewpoints and planning goals within the regulatory setting.
Joanne holds a MA in Archaeology from Simon Fraser University (2009), where her thesis Archaeology Without Reserve: Indigenous Heritage Stewardship in British Columbia was supervised by IPinCH Director George Nicholas, and a BA in Anthropology from McGill University (1997). She has specific field expertise in culturally modified trees and forests, a subject on which she conducts seminars and workshops for a variety of audiences. Her research interests include the archaeology and anthropology of contact-era British Columbia, the forces behind and implications of shifts in traditional land use patterns, and the changing roles of industry and government in modern treaty (and treaty-like) relationships that govern cultural heritage and traditional land use.
