2026 Jill Vickers Prize

Winner: Rebecca Major

(Cheryl Collier accepted the prize on her behalf)

Indigenous Women in Politics: A Spontaneous Tidal Wave or a Sleeping Giant?

Excerpt from jury report: Rebecca Major’s paper offers an impactful decolonial feminist intervention that recentres Indigenous women’s political agency and challenges dominant media and state narratives regarding the “novelty” of Indigenous women’s politics. By situating contemporary participation within decades of community, legal, and political struggle, the paper powerfully reframes Indigenous women’s engagement beyond electoral politics. The paper most significantly offers a challenge to what has been deemed public/political space within a settler-colonial state formation. The analysis draws on a strong historical and theoretical synthesis, particularly legal history. Overall, the paper makes an important corrective scholarly contribution with meaningful implications for journalism, education, and policy.