Priscylla Joca

Priscylla Joca is a legal researcher who is a non-Indigenous Brazilian woman and an immigrant to Canada. She has researched Indigenous rights and laws and socio-environmental issues from international, critical-pluralistic, comparative, and decolonial perspectives. Prior to joining Lincoln Alexander Law, Joca was a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto. Her work, conducted under the supervision of Professor John Borrows, focuses on Indigenous laws, self-determination, and environmental governance. She received her LL.D. from the Université de Montréal (2023). Her thesis focused on free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) and self-determination, analyzing the legal-political challenges of applying protocols developed by Indigenous peoples and traditional communities to guide consultation and consent processes. Joca received her LL.M. in Constitutional Law from the Federal University of Ceara (Brazil, 2011); her dissertation focused on the legal-political strategies developed by Indigenous peoples and traditional communities in their struggles for their collective rights to lands, territories, and resources.

In Canada, Joca has worked as a lecturer at the Université de Montréal and the Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, teaching Aboriginal Law, Indigenous Legal Traditions, and International Indigenous Issues. Her career began in Brazil, where she worked as a human rights lawyer and lecturer, and continued to work on projects related to Indigenous rights. She has (co-)authored many papers—such as the one “CPLE et protocoles de consultation autochtones au Brésil : trajectoires compares” published in 2019—and co-authored/co-edited some books, such as “Protocolos Autônomos de Consulta e Consentimento: Um olhar sobre o Brasil, Belize, Canadá e Colômbia [Autonomous Consultation and Consent Protocols: Brazil, Belize, Canada, and Colombia]” published in 2021. Joca believes that her role as a legal researcher involves building collaborations and partnerships with Indigenous peoples and organizations who are leading struggles for equality, justice, and self-determination, and who are key actors in developing strategies/policies to address climate change. In this way, she believes, it may be possible to build a better present and reimagine a (non-dystopian) future for all living beings.