Research Description

Lara is a mother and is co-chair of the Respectful Rematriation Ceremony and Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Manitoba. She works closely with the Council of Elders, Grandmothers, Grandfathers, and Knowledge Keepers to assure that they guide all aspects of rematriation andrepatriation at UM. She first came to rematriation work in Manitoba after a

decade and a half of work with Acoli Elders and youth in conflict and post-conflict Northern Uganda, and thus, her understanding of rematriation has grown through learnings about intergenerational Indigenous knowledge and sovereignty, human rights and responsibilities, justice, and institutional truth-telling. As the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, she understands the “collection” of Indigenous Ancestors and heritage by settler institutions to be a direct legacy of

dehumanizing colonial and settler-colonial genocide and therefore approaches the work as a necessary step in the country, and her own, relational repair and atonement journey.

Teaching Description

I am committed to a teaching philosophy that creates safe, diverse spaces for respectful, critical, and creative engagement with global and local issues. As a settler scholar, I see anthropology as a discipline that has a long history of grappling with its violent colonial and settler roots and legacies, and believe it–at its best–to be a generative place for students to engage in, foster, and grow ethical and critical thinking about humanity and the world.

Public/Media (Non-Technical) Description

I am currently co-chair of UM's Respectful Repatriation and Rematriation Ceremony, and have been working since 2019 to support an Indigenous, Elder-led process.

I have also collaborated on numerous projects in and about Northern Uganda as academic, artist, activist, and lecturer since 2004.

As the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, I am interested in how individuals and groups remake relationships during and after violence, conflict and upheaval, particularly recognising the role of Indigenous and cultural knowledge, and land rights within these processes. Looking to communities themselves as my primary guides and teachers, I strive to be useful to my hosts and collaborators.