A Winnipeg professor and art curator is being accused of falsely representing herself as Indigenous and continuing to do so in spite of multiple genealogy reports and a rejection from the Manitoba Métis Federation. Read this article for free: Already have an account? To continue reading, please subscribe: * A Winnipeg professor and art curator is being accused of falsely representing herself as Indigenous and continuing to do so in spite of multiple genealogy reports and a rejection from the Manitoba Métis Federation. Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? A Winnipeg professor and art curator is being accused of falsely representing herself as Indigenous and continuing to do so in spite of multiple genealogy reports and a rejection from the Manitoba Métis Federation.
Julie Nagam’s personal website — which was made private this week — states she is “Métis/German/Syrian.” Nagam is currently a professor of art in the University of Winnipeg’s history department and a Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Arts, Collaboration and Digital Media. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES Concern around Julie Nagam’s Métis lineage has been growing for years.
She has declared her Indigenous ancestry throughout an academic career spanning roughly two decades. During that time, Nagam has secured millions of dollars in research grants and been tapped for high-profile positions, ranging from a spot on the Junos’ governing board to artistic director of Nuit Blanche Toronto in 2020 and 2022. “My family was deeply implicated in the creation of our Canadian nation.
My mother’s family is French, with Aboriginal heritage on her mother’s side, erased from her narrative because she was adopted into a new family,” she wrote in a 2006 thesis for her master of arts at the University of Manitoba. The MMF is challenging that narrative, along with two separate researchers who shared their work with the “It’s fraud if you misrepresent yourself, if you say you’re a doctor but you don’t have a medical degree, that’s a crime, so this should be the same thing,” said Will Goodon, an MMF minister who has been working with colleagues to combat identity fraud, or what he calls the “Fétis” — fake Métis phenomenon. “You don’t call yourself ‘Dr.
Goodon’ before you finish your degree. You can’t call yourself Métis if you don’t have evidence.” Goodon confirmed Nagam’s application to the MMF did not meet the criteria required to obtain citizenship.
A family tree compiled for Nagam in 2021 by the St. Boniface Historical Society — the entity that conducts proof-of-Métis-ancestry searches for individuals to use to apply for MMF citizenship — was stamped “inconclusive.” “It’s an interesting family story, but it’s not an Indigenous story,” said Sherry Farrell Racette, an art historian and professor at the University of Regina, who researched a comprehensive family tree for Nagam.
Farrell Racette, who is Métis and Algonquin from Timiskaming First Nation, has expertise in issues of self-representation and has worked on hundreds of individual genealogy projects. She said she’s received several requests about Nagam in recent years because of how little is publicly known about the Winnipeg-based artist’s lineage and gossip circulating on social media. The results? They tell “a classic Manitoba settlement story,” she said, noting the majority of Nagam’s maternal ancestors over six generations were Quebec farmers who emigrated to Manitoba between 1879 and 1912 and consistently identified as French, Catholic and “white” in records.
The project involved scanning Canadian and United Kingdom censuses, Manitoba homestead records, and the Drouin Genealogical Institute, a francophone collection of church records and other historical documents, she said. Nagam did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Sources told the that local artists and academics have long been skeptical of her Indigeneity because of her vague identification.
The subject began making the rounds on social media in December 2021 after an anonymous user began posting about it on Instagram. Last week, U of W associate professor Cathy Mattes weighed in on her colleague’s alleged identity fraud on Facebook. “I can’t help but wonder, when does this person, who has identified as Indigenous since I first met her in 2002, who has entered into partnerships and collaborations, and obtained employment and a lot of funding confidently telling people she’s Indigenous face consequences that are acceptable to all those harmed?” wrote Mattes, an MMF citizen from the southwest region, in a post on Aug.
13. Nagam earned $115,954 in 2023, per the U of W’s latest salary disclosure report. Since 2013, she has secured more than $2.
2 million in research funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and Canada Research Chairs Program. Nagam was a co-applicant or collaborator on 12 other research projects that have received a combined $18.9 million in grant money between 2012 and 2023, data show.
Among her notable accomplishments, Nagam was selected to co-lead the Winnipeg Art Gallery’s Indigenous Advisory Circle in 2017. More recently, she curated public art installed at The Forks through a partnership with the Winnipeg Foundation and the WAG’s Insurgence/Resurgence exhibit. Mattes, who joined the U of W in 2021, said she offered to help Nagam map out her Métis lineage in the fall of 2022 in response to growing concerns within the local arts and academic community.
The absence of evidence was harming students who were being bombarded with questions and unsure about how their work would be affected if Nagam was outed as non-Indigenous, as well as the school’s reputation, she said. The subsequent search mirrored an earlier one conducted by Farrell Racette — which Mattes said she didn’t know existed at the time — and the St. Boniface Historical Society results that Nagam shared with both researchers before their respective projects.
Neither researcher found any proof of scrip, a Canadian government system set up to grant Métis people documents that were redeemable for land and money, in the family. “This is such a distraction from the incredibly important work we have to do (as Indigenous educators). We have languages to revitalize.
We have beautiful kids. We have, also, the people who are finding their way home who deserve all our loving support,” Farrell Racette said. Monday mornings The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week.
When reached by phone in Regina, she said individuals who falsely claim Indigenous identity cause harm by taking opportunities away from Indigenous people and casting doubt on individuals whose families have actually been traumatized by child welfare systems. “Just once, I’d like to see (people involved in these cases) say: ‘I was mistaken; I’m sorry,’” she said. U of W communications director Caleb Zimmerman said in a statement Wednesday that the university is taking the allegations against Nagam “very seriously” and “working to gain a better understanding of the situation.
” The Canada Research Chair Program was unaware of the allegations and has not received a formal complaint on the subject, a spokesperson said. maggie.macintosh@freepress.
mb.ca Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the . Originally from Hamilton, Ont.
, Maggie was an intern at the s twice while earning her degree at Ryerson’s School of Journalism (now Toronto Metropolitan University) before joining the newsroom as a reporter in 2019. . Funding for the education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the .
Every piece of reporting Maggie produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the ‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about , and . Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism.
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Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the . Originally from Hamilton, Ont., Maggie was an intern at the s twice while earning her degree at Ryerson’s School of Journalism (now Toronto Metropolitan University) before joining the newsroom as a reporter in 2019.
. Funding for the education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the . Every piece of reporting Maggie produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the ‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism.
Read more about , and . Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider .
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support. Advertisement Advertisement.
