Karen Bouchard
PhD Candidate, Political Science, Université Laval
Research Assistant, Implementation Evaluation and Socio-Economic Impacts

Karen Bouchard is a PhD candidate in political science at Université Laval. She is a member of the Northern Sustainable Development Research Chair and works part-time as a political analyst, under the research affiliate program, at Indigenous Services Canada (Quebec). Her research focuses on the the recognition of the indigenous right to self-government through free, prior and informed consent. It will more specifically seek defining the necessary conditions for implementing this right throughout the development phases of arctic mining projects conducted in the Inuit Nunangat (Canada) and the Norwegian Lapland (Finnmark). Her research project is part of the Knowledge Network on Mining Encounters and Indigenous Sustainable Livelihoods: Cross-Perspectives from the Circumpolar North and Melanesia/Australia (MinErAL Network) led by Professor Thierry Rodon.

She previously conducted research in Nunavut on the meaningful engagement of Inuit communities in the Mary River Project (Baffinland) and worked on the impacts of mining on local communities in the Southern Philippines. She completed a master's degree on water security and governance among the indigenous peoples of Kalinga, in the Northern Philippines.