About the Co-Chairs
The two UNESCO chairholders are located on different Indigenous territories. UNBC is situated on the ancestral lands of the Lheidli t’enneh, the people at the confluence of the two Rivers, the Nechako and the Fraser. L’heidli T’enneh hubeh keyoh whuts’odelhti. Nts’ezla hubeh yun ts’uwhut’i, tu’uzt’en ink’ez ts’unuwhulyeh.
Heritage Saskatchewan’s work traverses the traditional homelands of the Nehiyaw/Nehithaw/Nehinaw (Cree), Nahkawe (Saulteaux), Dakota, Lakota, Nakota, and Dene, the homeland the Michif (Métis), which are territories covered under Treaty 2, Treaty 4, Treaty 5, Treaty 6, Treaty 8, and Treaty 10, a place many cultures now call home.
Agnieszka Pawłowska-Mainville
Associate Professor, Faculty of Global and International Studies
Agnieszka Pawłowska-Mainville is Associate Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of Northern British Columbia, Canada. Her research focuses on intangible cultural heritage, particularly around livelihoods, foodways, local knowledge systems, innovative pedagogies, and language conveyance. Her work aims to support the processes of cultural heritage transmission to future generations. Her most recent publications discuss weaving Dakelh and academic pedagogies through moose-hide tanning (2020), an article on Indigenous resource governance (2021), and was a lead author on the IPBES Values assessment (2022). Her book “Stored in the Bones” will be published by University of Manitoba Press in 2023. Dr.Pawłowska-Mainville welcomes students interested in any area of research pertaining to cultural heritage: land-based traditions, language, knowledge safeguarding, collective memory, and folklore performativity. Topics related to Anishinaabe, Polish folklore and Slavonic traditions are welcome, as are any students excited about exploring their own heritage elements. Passing down own diverse cultural traditions and languages to her two children guide Pawłowska-Mainville’s engagement in this area of research.
Kristin Catherwood Mantta
Director of Living Heritage
Kristin Catherwood Mantta is the Director of Living Heritage at Heritage Saskatchewan, a non-profit organization that gives voice to living heritage in the province. Raised on a family farm in Treaty 4 Territory, she earned a BA (Hons) from the University of Regina in Classics and Medieval Studies and an MA in Folklore from Memorial University of Newfoundland with her thesis, “Every Place Had a Barn:” The Barn as a Symbol of the Family Farm in Southern Saskatchewan. She has worked in the cultural sector in Saskatchewan since 2015 and also has experience with economic development. In her work, she specializes in community engagement, intangible cultural heritage safeguarding, ethnographic documentation, and project planning. She is a documentary filmmaker, with two films produced by the National Film Board and a third independently produced with funding from the Canada Council for the Arts. She is a member of the CCUNESCO Memory of the World Advisory Committee and president of the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation. An experienced storyteller and writer, Kristin is devoted to safeguarding the unique natural and cultural landscapes of the rural prairies.
