Our People

The Atlantic Canada Studies Centre at the University of New Brunswick is managed by Dr. Elizabeth Mancke, Professor of History and Canada Research Chair in Atlantic Canadian Studies. Located in Singer Hall, room 154 (known as “The Lab”), The Atlantic Canada Studies Centre manages and maintains the ‘British North America Legislative Database,’ as well as other projects including forthcoming research on the regulation of the commons in the Bay of Fundy.

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At the Helm

Dr. Mancke’s broad research interests address the impact of European overseas expansion on governance and political systems, from local government to international relations. She has found that the study of Atlantic Canada provides unusually rich points of analytic purchase on major issues in the modern world.

In ‘The Lab’

Dr. Pettigrew has been managing various projects at the Atlantic Canada Studies Centre since she began as a PhD Candidate in History at the University of New Brunswick in 2013. Starting with the British North America Legislative Database (BNALD), she soon found herself working on the Vocabularies of Identities project as well as a few other projects in other universities around New Brunswick. She has also completed work as the research director for the Pointe Sainte-Anne exhibit at the Fredericton Region Museum, where she now sits on the board of directors. You can find her work in Unwritten Histories, Borealia, Acadiensis, and Terra Incognita.

Richard (he/him) is a PhD Candidate at the University of New Brunswick. His research looks at the relationship between developing scientific knowledge and settler colonialism in New Brunswick before 1885. This research asks how the settler state employed science as a tool for the management of natural resources and in agriculture but also as a weapon in the theft and commercialization of stolen Wabanaki lands and waters. For his research, Richard was awarded a 2020 United Empire Loyalist Scholarship, a 2021 O’Brien Fellowship, and a Social Science and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Award. His written work has appeared in the NB Media Co-op, the Acadiensis Blog, NiCHE, The Loyalist Gazette, and in 2022 he was nominated for a UNB Faculty of Arts Teaching Excellence Award.

Rachel Bryant is a writer and educator who lives in Menahkwesk/Saint John. Her ancestors were New England Planters and Loyalists who came to Wabanaki territory in the eighteenth century. The promises they made to live in good relationship with Wabanaki people informs the way she lives, reads, and writes. Her first book, The Homing Place, was short-listed for the Atlantic Book Award for Scholarly Writing and awarded the New Brunswick Book Award for Non-Fiction. She is currently at work on several projects, including a second book about settler colonialism and southern New Brunswick history. She shares some of her work and writing on her blog.

Zeke Crofton-Macdonald is a Wolastoqey man from Aroostook County, Maine. He is a member of Oromocto First Nation in New Brunswick and the Houlton Band of Maliseets in Maine. He is a graduate student at the University of New Brunswick where he is pursuing a Master’s in History and writing a thesis on Wabanaki Treaty History. Zeke attended the University of Maine for his undergraduate degree where he studied History and graduated in 2015. He has spent his life advocating for Wabanaki people in New Brunswick and throughout New England, working for the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe in his youth, the Boys and Girls Club of the Penobscot Nation while he attended UMaine, the Indian Child Welfare Act at the Houlton Band of Maliseets after graduation, Resource Development Consultation at St Mary’s First Nation and currently Oromocto First Nation. He also currently serves as the Tribal Co-Commissioner on the Maine Indian Tribal State Commission for the Houlton Band of Maliseets.

Andy is a third-year Ph.D. student (and retired tuba player) originally from Livingston, New Jersey; located on the traditional territory of the Munsee Lenape people.  Having has long held interest in the colonial and wider imperial histories of North America, and developed an interest in Atlantic Canada generally and the idiosyncrasies of Newfoundland and Labrador’s political and legal history as a master’s student, Andy is now studying the other, Indigenous sides of “colonial” history.  His current doctoral research examines how Europeans’ experience with Indigenous peoples (and visa versa) influenced the development of Indigenous-Imperial relations alongside pro-setter, anti-settler, and Newfoundland colonial policies that emerged in the Dawnland, the Big Land, and the Island respectively.  His goal is to show how the attempt to unite the Newfoundland fishery and the Labrador fur trade under a single government, as codified in the Royal Proclamation of 1763, was or was not also informed by British governors’ understanding of that same document as an “Indigenous Bill of Rights” meant to guide its dealings with Mi’kmaq, Innu, Inuit, and Beothuk.

Zachary (he/him) is a second year PhD Student at the University of New Brunswick. Originally from Saint John, New Brunswick, Zachary is currently calling Amherst, Nova Scotia home. His research explores the challenges involved in navigating the marine commons of the Gulf of St. Lawrence between 1815 and 1867. This research addresses questions on topics such the shared usage of marine space, collective and individual responsibilities of those who sailed the waters of the Gulf, and the participation of various settler colonial governments who claimed jurisdiction in, over, and under, this watery space in overseeing navigational safety. He seeks to highlight both the importance and the complexity of the overlapping jurisdictions, mutual challenges, and common webs of relations in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in order to call to attention the important role that the Gulf has played, and continues to play, in our shared past. For his research, Zachary was recently awarded a Social Science and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Fellowship.  His most recent written work, co-authored by Dr. Elizabeth Mancke, explores the construction of St. Paul and Scatarie Island lighthouses and can be found in the autumn/automne 2022 edition of Acadiensis.