Kurtis Boyer PhD, MA, BA

Dr. Kurtis Boyer (Michif/Métis) is a citizen of the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan and a political scientist working in the areas of Indigenous governance and political psychology. Originally from southern Saskatchewan, he completed his PhD in Political Science from Lund University in Sweden in 2018.

Dr. Boyer is currently the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School Research Chair in Métis Governance and Policy at the University of Saskatchewan, where he is also an assistant professor. His work covers issues related to Indigenous politics, self-governance, law, and political behavior.

Dr. Boyer has experience advising Métis governments on governance, constitutional reform, and legal and political analysis and has appeared before the Standing Senate Committee on Indigenous Peoples to discuss bills related to Indigenous governance​​.

In 2024 Dr. Boyer was appointed as the first recipient of the Alphonsine Lafond – Tom Molloy Memorial Fellowship on Leadership and Innovation in Indigenous Governance, awarded by the Institute for Research on Public Policy.

Designations

• PhD, Political Science, Lund University
• M.A., Political Science, University of Northern British Columbia
• B.A., International Studies, (minor in Indigenous Studies), University of Saskatchewan

Kurtis Boyer is currently accepting applications from new PhD and MPP students for September 2025 in the following research areas: Métis/Indigenous governance, policy, and politics.

Awards/Scholarships

• SSHRC Insight Development Grant: Building Métis Voice through Digital Democracy: A Case Study of Métis Nation-Saskatchewan
• SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship (2021), “Reconciliation, Emotion, and the “Pull of the Status Quo”

Selected Recent Publications

Currently working on a monograph that is under contract with Sydney University Press entitled: Autocracy of Empathy: Our Relations Beyond the Polis.

Selected Publications

• Boyer, Kurtis, and Chris Andersen. (forthcoming, 2024). "Defining A Nation: Métis Nation-Building in the face of Epistemic Injustice." Journal of the Native American and Indigenous Studies.
• Boyer, Kurtis, and Paul Simard. (forthcoming, 2024). "Self-Indigenization as Epistemic Injustice." In L. Forsythe (Ed.), Mawachihitotaak: Métis Studies Reader, pp. 1-21. Revision Requested, University of Manitoba Press.
• Boyer, Kurtis. (2023). "Where Does Agency Come From?: Exploring Indigenous Models of Mind." In A. Sullivan-Clarke (Ed.), Ways of Being in the World: An Introduction to Indigenous Philosophies of Turtle Island, pp. 82-94. Published, Broadview.
• Boyer, Kurtis. (2017). "Polar Bears and Other Objects." In Sara Jay (Ed.), Critical Norths: Space, Nature, Theory, pp. 103-117. Anchorage: University of Alaska Press.
• Boyer, Kurtis. (2016). "When the Butcher Calls the Hunter Foul, and the Muddied Politics which Follow: Speciesism and the EU Opposition to the Wolf Hunt." Contemporary Justice Review, 19(2), 201-209.