I am a cis-gender female and the first Canadian-born member of my family, the rest of whom immigrated from Egypt to B.C. in the 1970s.  My family home was very close to the Pickton farm, in fact. I vividly remember stories of after-parties being held on his property in the barn, where alcohol and drugs were served after hours.

Growing up in Port Coquitlam in the 70s and 80s was challenging; we were the only family of colour in our neighbourhood for a very long time. Over the years, my hometown has become increasingly diverse, but as a child with different lunches and holidays and skin colour, I always felt like I didn’t quite fit in.  We certainly did not have many privileges as a poor immigrant family; both parents worked in the service industry and barely made ends meet.  Racism was something I experienced first-hand from a very young age; once, a swastika was spray painted on my first car right in our front driveway.  It was very confusing for me as my Muslim family really kept to themselves and didn’t engage much with our primarily white, settler neighbours.

At the age of 17, I started as an undergraduate at Simon Fraser University where I initially enrolled with the intention of doing a degree in Business. At the age of 19 on a trip with friends to New York, I was stopped and questioned for hours about my intentions for entering the country.  I was photographed, fingerprinted and told that they had reason to believe that I was or would become involved in terrorist activity.  This experience of being racial profiled, and eventually banned from US travel, has haunted me for decades.  But from adversity comes inspiration; it was this initial experience during my university studies that led me to the field of criminology. My passion for justice and equality was born, and it continues to inspire me to provide accessible education and resources for criminology students for years to come.

My paternal great-grandmother emigrated to Canada from England in the early 1900s, and my father was born and raised in the interior of BC. My maternal grandparents arrived in Canada from the Netherlands in 1955. My mother was born in Alberta shortly thereafter, the 8th child of 11 in her family but the eldest child born in Canada. I was born in a small town in British Columbia to a middle-class family in the 1980s, the eldest of three children. I have had the privilege of living in both rural and urban areas throughout my life. I am a white, cis-gendered female and also a person with disabilities, most of which are invisible but have a profound impact on how I function in and view the world.

From the age of 12 until 22, I was determined to become a Crown Attorney but was also fascinated by the discipline of psychology. Completing an MA and PhD in Law and Forensic Psychology at Simon Fraser University, and joining the Criminology Department at KPU to teach psychology and law courses has afforded me the opportunity to work in both psychology and criminal justice fields.

Since the way we ask questions and the way we interpret the answers are often influenced by our own unique social lenses, we would like to share our social perspectives with the reader before delving into the discussion of research methods.

I—Wendelin Hume—was born in northwestern Minnesota but grew up in northwestern Ontario on land that is part of the Whitefish Bay Reserve/Naotkamegwanning Nation where I and my dad are enrolled. We have no idea of my mother’s ancestry as she was adopted as an infant and no records have been located. I experienced both the horrors of repeated violence and victimization in my youth as well as wonderful traditional teachings under Baptiste, a respected spiritual elder who has since journeyed on.

I experienced the Father Moss boarding school briefly, and then from grade 6 onwards I completed my schooling at home on my own with lessons provided by the provincial government. Later, my family moved back to the United States, and eventually, I attended high school for a year and a half before I graduated. I got married and had children while very young. Later, to better support my family, I completed a college degree at Black Hills State College in Spearfish, South Dakota. To try to correct some of the inequities in our justice system and put my woundedness into service for others, I earned my master’s and doctorate degrees in Criminal Justice and Criminology with an emphasis in victimology and statistics at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas.

I accepted a faculty position in North Dakota to be back up north and closer to family. I missed the trees and the snow. I missed the people and the land I am familiar with. Being Anishinaabe, I relate with the cultural background of Turtle Mountain tribal people more than the other tribes in my state, though I have worked with and developed friendships with members of all the North Dakota tribes. Part of my research interest is to study problems and successes in remote rural areas I can still access with some ‘windshield time’ from the University of North Dakota (UND). It should be noted that today, UND rests on the ancestral lands of the Pembina and Red Lake Bands of Ojibwe and the Dakota Oyate—presently existing as composite parts of the Red Lake, Turtle Mountain, White Earth Bands, and Dakota Tribes of Minnesota and North Dakota. We acknowledge the people who resided here for generations and recognize that the spirit of the Ojibwe and Oyate people permeates this land. As a university community, we will continue to build upon our relations with the First Nations of the state of North Dakota—the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation; Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate Nation; Spirit Lake Nation; Standing Rock Sioux Tribe; and Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians.

Personally, as a member of the Bear Clan, protecting others and trying to improve justice are important to me. In my research, I try to follow the 3Rs: Respect, Responsibility and Reciprocity. I demonstrate Respect as I am committed to the wisdom of the elders and others, and I try to be a good listener. I attempt to show Responsibility as an experienced and passionate researcher who is looking to improve the world of the next seven generations through research. I also believe in Reciprocity, and I think both the researcher and the participants involved in research should benefit from the research enterprise and any resulting improvements should benefit future generations.