Kelsey Timler

I am an activist researcher who works on a number of Participatory Action Research projects in partnership with people who are or have been incarcerated, with the ultimate goal of supporting the health, wellbeing, and dignity of those unjustly burdened by the colonial carceral state through art and storytelling. I am the academic co-lead of an arts-based program of research called Action, Reciprocity, Transformation (ART & Justice), wherein we support community building and holistic wellbeing through the creation and sharing of art across prison walls. My doctoral research focused on building a food justice community with women on parole, seeing recipe development and the making and sharing of food as a form of storytelling and resurgence. I have also worked alongside leadership at the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Socities to develop and launch the Center for Research into Processes & Outcomes of Incarceration (CRPOI) – where we are focused on supporting meaningful research that centers lived experience, confronts carceral harms, and results in real world change. I live on the unceded and occupied territories of the Sto:lo First Nation in British Columbia, Canada.