Harvard bound

March 27, 2019

Congratulations to political science doctoral student Teddy Harrison who come September, will be heading to Harvard’s Department of African and African American Studies to begin a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship working with philosopher Tommie Shelby.

Teddy, whose PhD research focuses on the legitimacy of the Canadian criminal justice system for Indigenous people, is hoping the opportunity will be a springboard into an academic career. “This fellowship offers me the chance to build on my doctoral training and publish my research, which is increasingly a prerequisite for academic jobs. I’m looking forward to taking my research in a new, comparative direction and being part of the fantastic community of scholars at Harvard. I hope to take advantage of the resources available to learn as much as I can about the American context while I’m there.”

That comparative direction will include looking at the mass incarceration of African-Americans in the United States alongside the over-incarceration of Indigenous people in Canada. “I will be examining the same question: how can there be legitimate practices of criminal justice against the background of a society structured by racialized injustice?”