Aaron Franks

Aaron Franks has worked at FNIGC since 2018, where he oversees the Data Sovereignty Research Collaborative (DSRC), a space for applied research and creative inquiry into First Nations data sovereignty, including the community led development of tools and standards for asserting and respecting The First Nations Principles of OCAP®.

Aaron’s 30-year career spans theatre, arts-based research and critical theory and advocacy, analysis and leadership in “research about research,” the limits of policy, and resisting extraction of First Peoples’ knowledges and relations. Prior to joining FNIGC, Aaron worked at Queen’s University’s Centre for Environmental Health Equity and Centre for Indigenous Research Creation, and was a policy fellow at the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council where he developed an approach to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Action #65. He is also a past editor of alt.theatre magazine.

Aaron has a BFA from the University of Alberta, an MA in Social Justice and Equity Studies from Brock University, and a PhD in Human Geography from the University of Glasgow. Originally from Treaty 6 territory in Edmonton, he has British, Northern European, and Metis ancestors, with ties to the Anglo-Metis communities of St. Andrews, MB, and Birch Hills, SK. A member of the Manitoba Métis Federation, he lives in Ottawa with his family on unceded Algonquin territory, where he volunteers on the board of Horizon Ottawa.