Student Research Spotlight: Emma Haugen

Bachelor of Arts, Sociology Major

For Emma Haugen, a nêhiyaw-iskwêw (Cree) woman and a fourth-year Sociology student at CUE, a single elective course changed everything.

“I took a sociology class just for extra credit,” she recalls. “I ended up really engaging with the material and the process of doing research.”

After moving from Grande Prairie to Edmonton to attend Concordia University of Edmonton, Emma began building relationships within the Indigenous community through mentors, teachings, and shared learning. 

Through these relationships and her coursework at CUE, Emma developed a research approach that brings together qualitative methods from both Sociology and Indigenous Studies. Her project focuses on the lived experiences of Indigenous women who hitchhike across Western Canada, using relational interviews and oral storytelling to centre the voices of the women themselves.

“I wanted to integrate Indigenous methodology into my research,” she explains. “Interconnectedness is a core value within Indigenous cultures.”

The women Emma met and spoke with are not research subjects, but active participants in the research process. Their stories shape the project itself, reflecting the interconnectedness at the heart of the work while challenging the stigmatization and victimization often placed on Indigenous women who hitchhike.

“Every lesson could be told through a story or sometimes a song,” Emma says. “People had ways of relating one experience to another through storytelling. I felt a strong connection to that oral tradition. When I had the opportunity to conduct research, I thought, why not share that researcher role and allow others with more experience to share what they have to say too?”

Through these conversations and shared stories, Emma’s research also highlights the structural realities many rural and reserve communities face. In areas where public transportation is limited or nonexistent, hitchhiking often becomes one of the only viable ways to travel long distances for work, family responsibilities, or essential services.

Through her research, Emma also learned more about community-led safety initiatives designed to raise awareness when Indigenous people go missing. One example is Aboriginal Alert (www.aboriginalalert.ca), a system that sends email notifications to subscribers when an Indigenous person is reported missing within a 100-kilometre radius of their area.

By bringing together qualitative sociology methods and Indigenous storytelling traditions, Emma’s research reflects the interconnectedness that guides both her work and the communities she collaborates with. Through shared stories and lived experience, her project aims to deepen understanding, challenge stigma, and encourage broader conversations about safety, mobility, and support for Indigenous communities across Western Canada.