PhD dissertation (defended 2021)
“Networks of Colonial Governance: Department of Indian Affairs Legal Aid in Canada, 1870 to 1970.” University of Toronto, Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies.
Abstract: This study is the inaugural history of a Department of Indian Affairs (DIA) legal aid policy to appoint and fund defence counsel for status Indians charged with capital (or non-capital) murder from the 1880s, through the late 1960s. Using over six hundred case files from DIA and Department of Justice records at Library and Archives Canada, this critical settler-colonial legal history explores the role of legal aid in state-formation, arguing that DIA legal aid was a technique of colonial governance co-produced by a network of legal actors within and outside the federal government. These legal actors participated in the provision of DIA legal aid in a variety of modes that reflected their positions and interests within administrative, legal, and criminal justice systems; each substantive chapter in this study focuses on these distinctive roles and modes. Legal actors included in the study include DIA Bureaucrats, Judges, Department of Justice Bureaucrats, Defence Lawyers, Indian Agents, and Indigenous lawyers. Spanning a century, and the entire geography of Canada, this national-scale study demonstrates the broad and deep relationship between the administration of justice and the administration of Indian affairs.
Journal articles and chapters:
J. Briggs. "Exemplary Punishment: T. R. L. MacInnes, the Department of Indian Affairs and Indigenous Executions, 1936-1952" Canadian Historical Review vol. 100, issue 3 (2019) doi: https://doi.org/10.3138/chr.2018-0044
J. Briggs. 2020. "Mercy redux: a genealogy of special consideration of Indigenous circumstances at sentencing in Canada, from Indian Agents to Gladue and Ipeelee" in Studies in Law, Politics and Society Vol. 83, ed. Austin Sarat, 57-97. doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-433720200000083003
Mariana Valverde, Jacqueline Briggs, Grace Tran & Matthew Montevirgen (2020) "Public universities as real estate developers in the age of “the art of the deal” in Studies in Political Economy 101:1, 35-58, DOI: 10.1080/07078552.2020.1738781
Other publications:
Toronto Star, Op Ed, April 2, 2016: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2016/04/03/shameful-anniversary-should-spur-action-on-aboriginal-justice-crisis.html
The University as Urban Developer: A Research Report (co-authored with Prof. Mariana Valverde): http://criminology.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/The-university-as-developer-nov-2015-1.pdf
“Networks of Colonial Governance: Department of Indian Affairs Legal Aid in Canada, 1870 to 1970.” University of Toronto, Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies.
Abstract: This study is the inaugural history of a Department of Indian Affairs (DIA) legal aid policy to appoint and fund defence counsel for status Indians charged with capital (or non-capital) murder from the 1880s, through the late 1960s. Using over six hundred case files from DIA and Department of Justice records at Library and Archives Canada, this critical settler-colonial legal history explores the role of legal aid in state-formation, arguing that DIA legal aid was a technique of colonial governance co-produced by a network of legal actors within and outside the federal government. These legal actors participated in the provision of DIA legal aid in a variety of modes that reflected their positions and interests within administrative, legal, and criminal justice systems; each substantive chapter in this study focuses on these distinctive roles and modes. Legal actors included in the study include DIA Bureaucrats, Judges, Department of Justice Bureaucrats, Defence Lawyers, Indian Agents, and Indigenous lawyers. Spanning a century, and the entire geography of Canada, this national-scale study demonstrates the broad and deep relationship between the administration of justice and the administration of Indian affairs.
Journal articles and chapters:
J. Briggs. "Exemplary Punishment: T. R. L. MacInnes, the Department of Indian Affairs and Indigenous Executions, 1936-1952" Canadian Historical Review vol. 100, issue 3 (2019) doi: https://doi.org/10.3138/chr.2018-0044
- Awarded best political history article by the Canadian Historical Association,
- Awarded the Peter Oliver prize by the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History.
J. Briggs. 2020. "Mercy redux: a genealogy of special consideration of Indigenous circumstances at sentencing in Canada, from Indian Agents to Gladue and Ipeelee" in Studies in Law, Politics and Society Vol. 83, ed. Austin Sarat, 57-97. doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-433720200000083003
Mariana Valverde, Jacqueline Briggs, Grace Tran & Matthew Montevirgen (2020) "Public universities as real estate developers in the age of “the art of the deal” in Studies in Political Economy 101:1, 35-58, DOI: 10.1080/07078552.2020.1738781
Other publications:
Toronto Star, Op Ed, April 2, 2016: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2016/04/03/shameful-anniversary-should-spur-action-on-aboriginal-justice-crisis.html
The University as Urban Developer: A Research Report (co-authored with Prof. Mariana Valverde): http://criminology.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/The-university-as-developer-nov-2015-1.pdf