May Farrales

Dr. May Farrales is a Postdoctoral Researcher with the Health Arts Research Centre in the Northern Medical Program at the University of Northern British Columbia on the unceded and traditional territories of the Lheidli T’enneh. Dr. Farrales finished her PhD in Geography at the University of British in 2017. Her dissertation, “Gendered sexualities in migration: Play, pageantry, and the politics of performing Filipino-ness in settler colonial Canada,” examines how Filipinx sexualities are informed and influenced by colonial logics.

Dr. Farrales received a 2019 MSFHR Trainee Award. Her postdoctoral research asks: what factors affect and nurture the health and well-being of Filipinos in the context of Northern BC. Using a social determinants of health framework, in concert with qualitative research methods, the project aims to determine intersectional factors that influence the well-being of a recent immigrant group in northern resource extractive geographies. The project also explores these factors in relationship to health disparities and innovations of Indigenous northern communities and how Filipinos in rural and remote communities understand Indigenous issues and questions of reconciliation and Indigenous self-determination.