Dr. Heather Dorries

Biography

Heather Dorries is an Associate Professor jointly appointed at the Centre for Indigenous Studies and the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on the dynamic interplay between resurgent Indigenous world-making and the violence of settler colonial urbanization. Specifically, she examines how settler colonialism and forms of racial capitalism are supported by planning processes. Dorries considers how Indigenous intellectual traditions—including Indigenous environmental knowledge, legal orders, and cultural production—can be applied to anti-colonial planning practices. She develops theoretical and methodological frameworks to support this transformation. Her publications include works on Indigenous relationality in planning futures and an exploration of racial capitalism in the production of settler colonial cities.

Research Interests