Michel Bouchard

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My current research explores how memes shape national narratives, with a particular focus on Ukraine. This project grows out of my long-standing interest in Russian nationalism and the ways it has been mobilized to legitimize imperial expansion. Together, these threads reflect my broader concern with how nations imagine themselves—and how those imaginations circulate, mutate, and gain power.

Much of my published work has centered on Métis and French-speaking communities, especially in Québec and the Great Lakes region. With Sébastien Malette and Guillaume Marcotte, I co-authored Les Bois-Brûlés de l’Outaouais: Une étude ethnoculturelle des Métis de la Gatineau (2019), followed by its English edition, Bois-Brûlés: The Untold Story of the Métis of Western Québec (2020). Both books were peer-reviewed and supported through ASPP grants. I later collaborated with Malette and Siomonn Pulla to co-edit Eastern Métis: Chronicling and Reclaiming a Denied Past (2021), a volume that engages with the complexities of identity, history, and recognition in the region. Earlier in my career, I co-authored Songs Upon the Rivers (2016), which traces the often overlooked history of French-speaking Canadiens and Métis communities from the Great Lakes and Mississippi to the Pacific.

In addition to my research and writing, I serve as Secretary of both the World Council of Anthropological Associations and the World Anthropological Union, roles that allow me to contribute to global conversations about the discipline and its future.

Experience

  • 2000–present
    Professor of Anthropology, University of Northern British Columbia

Education

  • 2003 
    University of Alberta, PhD in Anthropology
  • 1994 
    Université Laval, MA in Anthropology
  • 1991 
    University of Toronto , BA with Distinction in Anthropology

Publications

  • 2025
    Feeding the Feed: How Food Memes Reflect Resilience in Daily Life in a War-torn Ukraine, https://www.ibidem.eu/en/Topics/Social-Sciences/Journal-of-Soviet-and-Post-Soviet-Politics-and-Society-oxid.html
  • 2025
    Memeing war: the use of humor for hope, resistance, and forging the nation, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14608944.2025.2505477
  • 2023
    Academia, Twitter wars, and suffocating social justice in Canada: the case of unrecognised Indigenous peoples, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10624-022-09677-2
  • 2023
    Core Concepts in Cultural Anthropology: Canadian Edition, https://www.oupcanada.com/catalog/9780190165932.html
  • 2021
    Eastern Métis: Chronicling and Reclaiming a Denied Past, https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/eastern-m%C3%A9tis-9781793605443/
  • 2020
    Cette rivière qui divise au Canada : les Métis de part et d’autre de l’Outaouais, https://journals.openedition.org/jsa/19004
  • 2020
    The warrior muzhik and fakelore maiden: Russian banal nationalism on and offline, https://etnografia.kunstkamera.ru/en/archive/2020_3/bushar_m_poluektova_t_penroze_e_henderson_m_muzhik-voin_i_kvazi-fejklornaya_deva_obydennyj_russkij_nacionalizm_on-lajn_i_oflajn
  • 2020
    Bois-Brûlés: The Untold Story of the Métis of Western Québec, https://www.ubcpress.ca/bois-brules
  • 2019
    Les Bois-Brûlés de l’Outaouais, https://www.pulaval.com/livres/les-bois-brules-de-l-outaouais-une-etude-ethnoculturelle-des-metis-de-la-gatineau
  • 2016
    Songs Upon the Rivers, https://www.barakabooks.com/catalogue/songs-upon-the-rivers/

Contact Michel for

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