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I am a queer settler with Irish, Scottish and English roots who grew up on the unceded territories of the Wəlastəkwiyik (Maliseet) and L'nu (Mi’kmaw) Peoples. I received my PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of New Brunswick in 2012. I have been at Laurier since 2013 where I am Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies. I teach on Indigenous-settler history, feminism and the politics of decolonization, and issues of reproductive and environmental justice.
I have been researching the coerced sterilization of Indigenous women in Canada for nearly twenty years. I am author of two books on the subject, The Genocide Continues: Population Control and the Sterilization of Indigenous Women (2025) and An Act of Genocide: Colonialism and the Sterilization of Aboriginal Women in Canada (2015). I have served as expert witness and appeared before the Senate Committee on Human Rights and the House of Commons Committee on Health in their investigations of coerced sterilization, and the Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee to Study Bill S-228 An Act to Amend the Criminal Code (sterilization procedures). I am a SSHRC-funded scholar whose work also appears in American Indian Culture and Research Journal (2012), Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice (2017), Native American and Indigenous Studies (2022), and Sacred Bundles Unborn, 2nd Edition (FriesenPress 2024).
- Merit Award, Teaching
- SSHRC Insight Development Grant
- Internal Category A Research Grant
For research opportunities, please contact me directly.
Books
- Karen Stote, The Genocide Continues: Population Control and the Sterilization of Indigenous Women. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing (2025).
- Karen Stote, An Act of Genocide: Colonialism and the Sterilization of Aboriginal Women. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing (2015).
Articles
- Karen Stote, "Reflections on the Coerced Sterilization of Indigenous Women: Toward Seeing the Humanity of Indigenous Peoples," in Sacred Bundles Unborn, by Morningstar Mercredi and the Firekeepers. Manitoba: FriesenPress (2022/2024).
- Karen Stote, "From Eugenics to Family Planning: The Coerced Sterilization of Indigenous Women in Post-1970 Saskatchewan," NAIS: Journal of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association 9, 1 (2022): 102-132.
- Karen Stote, "Decolonizing Feminism: From Reproductive Abuse to Reproductive Justice," Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice/Études critiques sur le genre, la culture, et la justice sociale 38, 1 (2017): 110-124.
- Karen Stote, "The Myth of Reproductive Choice: A Call for Radical Change," in Without Apology: Writings on Abortion in Canada. Shannon Stettner, ed. Alberta: Athabasca University Press (2016).
- Karen Stote, “The Coercive Sterilization of Aboriginal Women in Canada,” American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 36, 3 (2012): 117-150.