Beatrice Jauregui, Professor and Graduate Coordinator at the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, is one of nine researchers from the University of Toronto who have received Connaught Community Partnership Research Program awards for 2025-26.
Given by the Connaught Fund, the awards support research carried out in collaboration with non-academic community partners and driven by their needs and priorities. A total of just over $850,000 is being disbursed for the 2025-26 competition, with each project eligible to receive up to $50,000 per year for one to two years.
"The Connaught Community Partnership Research Program has a proud track record of supporting projects that have driven research priorities identified by community partners, while strengthening relationships between U of T scholars, community organizations and communities across Canada," said Leah Cowen, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives.
Professor Jauregui received the award to support a collaborative project titled "Community peacekeeping, justice, and law in Kahnawà:ke." The research addresses how the Kahnawà:ke Peacekeepers—a self-administered police service on the territory established by a community legal resolution in 1979—has evolved in dialogue with community movements to assert sovereignty and advance self-determination. In partnership with the Peacekeepers Services Board, and drawing on Haudenosaunee principles around jurisdiction and justice in relation to the Kaianere'kó:wa (Great Law of Peace), this research synthesizes various perspectives among community members to identify targeted needs and priorities, inform policy changes, develop new and improved peacekeeping programs, and share knowledge that may help advance self-governance for Kahnawa’kehró:non (community members), and also potentially serve as a model for other Indigenous communities that already have, or aim to establish, self-administered policing organizations as part of a broader system of community self-governance.
Professor Jauregui’s research partnership with Kahnawà:ke is both innovative and deeply responsive to the community’s distinct needs and priorities. The project is grounded in sustained, reciprocal dialogue with community members and in the careful cultivation of meaningful relationships—an approach that reflects a core tenet of Haudenosaunee law. As a Mohawk of Kahnawà:ke, I am deeply grateful for the care, commitment, and intellectual rigour Professor Jauregui has brought to this work, and for her willingness to take on the complex challenge of fostering conversations that will have lasting significance for my community and for generations yet to come.
—Brandon Tehsenréhtanion Montour, Decision-maker, Administrative Tribunal of Kahnawà:ke and SJD Candidate, University of Toronto Law School