Nicole Laliberté

Nicole Laliberté is a feminist geographer whose research interests lie at the intersection of feminist theory, critical geographies, and questions of justice. Her earlier work focused on post-war peacebuilding in Uganda and critical human rights analyses. Currently, her work focuses on university systems and classroom politics using a feminist geographic lens. She is a member of multiple collaborative research groups, including FLIP: Failure – Learning in Progress and the Indigenous Action Group at UTM. In her courses, she views students as partners in the process of knowledge creation and is a strong advocate for place-based and discovery-based learning.

Collaborative Research 

Struggle and failure are important parts of the learning process. Yet, interlocking systems of power and privilege dramatically shape who can afford to take risks, who gets to fail, and who has the resources and support to try again. FLIP works to normalize the experience of failure, promote equitable failure pedagogy, and stimulate positive institutional cultures for students, staff, instructors, and administrators alike.

Selected References: 

Rawle, F., Laliberté, N., & Guadagnolo, D. (2026). An interdisciplinary review of learning through failure in higher education. Educational Review, 78(3), 388–411. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2025.2475829

Ross, J. N., Eastman, A., Laliberte, N., & Rawle, F. (2022). The power behind the screen: Educating competent technology users in the age of digitized inequality. International Journal of Educational Research, 115, 102014. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2022.102014. 

Ross, J. N., Guadagnolo, D., Eastman, A., Petrei, M., Bakaj, A., Crupi, L., ... & Rawle, F. (2023). Instructor Perspectives on Failure and Its Role in Learning in Higher Education. Currents in Teaching & Learning, 14(2).

Indigenous Action Group

The Indigenous Action Group (IAG) is an alliance of solidarity between Indigenous and settler faculty at the University of Toronto Mississauga with the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation (MCFN), whose Treaty lands the campus is located on. This partnership of responsibility supports the MCFN goals of truth (through public knowledge and recognition of their history), and reconciliation (through the support and equitable sustenance of Indigenous pedagogy, knowledge systems, and research methodologies in educational institutions). The IAG has developed a Community-Engaged Learning (CEL) course to bring ontological pluralism to the Academy to legitimize Indigenous knowledges, epistemologies, and involve the placemaking of local Indigenous communities¹.

¹Tuhiwah Smith, L. (1999/2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (2ndedition).New York, NY: Zed Books

Selected References

Fukuzawa, S., Jamieson, V. K., Laliberte, N., & Belmore, D. (2020). Community-engaged Learning (CEL): Integrating Anthropological Discourse with Indigenous Knowledge. Teaching Anthropology, 9(2), 43-50.

Judge, A., Fukuzawa, S., & Ferrier, J. (2021). Local Indigenous ways of knowing and learning in the classroom through Community-engaged learning. Teaching Anthropology Journal, 10(4), 47-57.

Additional References

McLeod, D.B., Wright, W., Laliberte, N., Bain, A., and Dowler, N. (2021). Embodying controversy through feminist pedagogy. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographers, 20(5), 479-490.

Laliberté, N. (2016.) “Peace Begins at Home: Geographic Imaginaries of Violence and Peacebuilding in Northern Uganda.” Political Geography. 52: 24-33. 

Laliberté, N., J.P. Catungal, H. Castledon, A. Keeling, B. Momer, and C. Nash. (2015). “Teaching the Geographies of Canada: implementing anti-oppression pedagogies.” The Canadian Geographer. 59(4): 519-531.

Laliberté, N. (2015). “Geographies of Human Rights: Mapping Responsibility.” Geography Compass. 9(2): 57-67.