Kiera
Mitchell
Bio
I am a PhD Candidate in the University of Saskatchewan's Department of History with a strong background in histories of gender, sexuality, Canada, law, and labour. Additionally, as someone invested in an interdisciplinary approach to scholarship, I am well-versed in the areas of family law, religious studies, and art history. Raised in the prairies and from a long line of shrewd women, my work seeks to place the remarkable experiences of women in Canada's fly-over-provinces into the transnational context in which they belong.
Dissertation
My SSHRC funded dissertation is a legal history project studying the origins and ongoing impact of three Canadian Supreme Court cases during the 1970s and 1980s: Murdoch v. Murdoch (1973), Rathwell v. Rathwell (1978), and Pettkus v. Becker (1981). Through applying legal and historical research methods to the study of these three cases, this project investigates how Canadian women’s experiences of property division at the end of marriage and common-law relationships significantly changed, legally and socially, beginning in the 1970s. Combining case law with popular publications like Chatelaine and The Western Producer, I’m interested in understanding how the ending of three relationships in rural, agricultural Canada impacted living, working, and loving under family property law for all Canadians in the latter twentieth century.
Teaching
My love of conducting research and writing translates well into my one-on-one tutoring work with undergraduate and graduate students at the Murray Library Writing Centre. I enjoy teaching the fundamentals of historical knowledge and skills in a manner tailored to different learning styles and respectful of what each student brings to their academic experience.