Researcher profile, Lindsey Schneider
July 14, 2026
By Anne MacLaurin
Q/A: Researcher Profile: Lindsey Schneider
Dr. Schneider teaches in the School of Environmental Studies. She is an associate professor whose area of expertise is: Settler colonialisms, Indigenous feminisms & Indigenous feminist Methodologies, queer theory, community engagement, land-based pedagogies.
Can you tell me what Indigenous-led scholarship means to you?
Indigenous-led scholarship means I’m in a radically different role than what most of us were taught in grad school. We use the language of “primary investigator” in academia and tend to think of ourselves as “experts,” but if I’m working on an Indigenous-led project than I’m more like a facilitator, and I’m definitely not in charge.
It’s my job to listen to what the community’s priorities are, understand what challenges they are facing, get myself up to speed on the history and context, and then facilitate the flow of whatever is needed—funding, resources, technical expertise, or whatever else I have access to because of my position in the institution—to where the community wants it to go. In my experience that often means that I will spend a lot more time driving to meetings and helping clean up after lunch than I will sharing my knowledge, that a “project” is going to take much longer than any grant timeline is set up for, and that I will always learn more from doing this kind of work than from any other kind of scholarship.
My favorite scholarly product from an Indigenous-led project I’ve been working on for years is a drawing from a 9 year old girl of the Ojibwe creation story, which she learned at an inter-tribal summer camp. It didn’t get peer reviewed in the traditional sense (although the rest of her language group did provide some feedback), but I’m so much prouder of that little girl knowing who she is and where she comes from because of a program her community wanted and I helped facilitate into existence than I am of any of my academic articles.
What do you enjoy most about teaching undergraduates?
This is a little self-centered, but my favorite thing about teaching undergraduates is the sense of hope it gives me. As a scholar of ethnic studies and environmental studies, it gets hard not to look at the world and feel like things are very bad and getting worse. And it’s true that a lot of teaching in those fields is about introducing students to the complexity and thorniness of the very bad problems.
But they never want to turn away from it, they always want to know why and how and what to do about it. I used to think it was just an age thing, that hope is endemic to youth, but that’s not it, because the adult learners I’ve had in the classroom are often the most motivated and energized and creative. I think there is something really special about teaching in these fields where the classroom can be a place to alchemize our collective rage about systems that are causing harm into courage to do transformative work, and that process brings me so much joy.
Strong family role models
Tell me about your path into academia, where there any influences?
I definitely did not set out to become a professor; I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do after undergrad but a year later when my “fun summer reading” was a 600 page legal history of tribal sovereignty, I realized I was not going to be happy unless research was part of my job. I was lucky that I had really good examples of how to do that without needing to follow a prescribed career path: my dad didn’t finish high school but is a self-taught chemist who worked his way up from canning paint to running a company that developed a totally new type of air barrier for building construction.
He loves a challenge and has always approached the word with a deep sense of curiosity and joy in learning new things. Seeing him do that without a formal education really drove home for me that a love of knowledge and learning exists outside of schooling, and in fact that formal education can kill that spark, especially for Indigenous students. My mom ran her own business when I was little, and I don’t think she would describe herself as particularly brave or a feminist, but I definitely saw her that way.
One morning when I was ten there was a pretty bad storm and a tree fell down across our road so we couldn’t get to school. I had never seen her use a chainsaw before, but she just got it out and sawed the tree up like it was no big deal, and off we went to school, and I remember thinking, “oh ok, girls can use chainsaws, I guess girls can do anything!” She is very much a problem solver, and anytime something came up that we didn’t know how to handle, we would go to the library to find a book about it and figure it out.
Why UVic? As an Indigenous scholar what drew you to the campus?
The location was a big draw; I grew up in Oregon but I have been living in Colorado and just really missed the woods; the cedar trees and salal and the way the dirt smells in the spring when it starts to warm up. But more specifically, UVic was really appealing because of the institutional commitment to Indigenous issues and the number of Indigenous faculty here.
I have been in academia long enough to know that the institutional changes that are needed to make it a better place for Indigenous students are really hard to sustain without support from upper levels of administration and a critical mass of folks who want to do the work, who know what needs to be done, and are in it for the long haul. It was really enticing to learn about all the amazing things that have already been put in place here, and it made me excited to be able to contribute as part of such a strong community. I was also really impressed by the way the School of Environmental Studies had a strong emphasis on research and scholarship that serves the needs of community, and excited to be amongst colleagues who value that kind of work.
Why study salmon?
What excites you, drives you about your area of scholarship?
Topically, my research is mostly about salmon, which I have always been interested in because they are such a strong touchpoint for the intersection of ecology, politics and Indigeneity in the Pacific Northwest (PNW). They’re intriguing because there is still so much about them that Western science doesn’t totally understand, like how they migrate or adapt, and Indigenous relationships with salmon are infinitely deep and complex. But underneath that, what’s really driving my research is a commitment to Indigenous communities, and a deep-seated investment in Indigenous land/water relationships.
Whether it’s salmon, or buffalo, or wild rice, or herring, or condors… if we’re talking about Indigenous peoples protecting and restoring these relatives, we are talking are talking about repairing harm caused by settler colonialism. But I think salmon are particularly exciting because their movement through oceans and across the landscape means we get to confront the possibility dismantling the physical infrastructure of settler colonialism, like hydroelectric dams that were put in to enable settler expansion and (literally and figuratively) power the settler state.
Salmon geopolitcs
Do you have any future research topics on the horizon?
I’m really excited to be here, specifically because I’m interested in conversations about Indigenous fisheries governance that cross geopolitical borders. US and Canadian approaches to fisheries management and Indigenous rights might be very different, but salmon and other anadromous fish don’t recognize those boundaries. Indigenous peoples weren’t consulted when those borders were set up, and they don’t necessarily align with Indigenous notions of spatial belonging.
I’m really interested in what it would look like to frame salmon restoration, for example, based on Indigenous relationships with salmon rather than provincial, state or federal directives. So much amazing work has been done by alliances among Indigenous Nations based on particular watersheds or local regions, and I’m intrigued by those kinds of possibilities.