معرفی
Fiona Nicoll is a Professor in the Department of Political Science within the Faculty of Arts at the University of Alberta. Her interdisciplinary research spans critical gambling studies, critical race and whiteness studies, Indigenous sovereignty, and cultural politics. As Research Chair in Gambling Policy with the Alberta Gambling Research Institute, she leads innovative work at the intersection of gambling, finance, and everyday life.
- BA(Hons)
- PhD
Nicoll's research explores the politics of art and everyday life, reconciliation processes, Indigenous sovereignty, racism, public art, nationalism, and whiteness. Her work employs frameworks from critical gambling studies, critical race theory, Indigenous knowledges, STS, and theories of aesthetics. She examines how gambling functions as a site where risk, finance, and play converge in liberal-democratic societies, with implications for individual and state economies. Her scholarship also addresses the relationship between Indigenous peoples and universities through projects like "Courting Blakness," which engaged with Aboriginal artists to create dialogue about colonial histories.
Her publications reveal a consistent focus on the cultural dimensions of political phenomena, particularly examining gambling as more than just "problem behavior" but as an integral part of everyday life and neoliberal governance. Her work bridges cultural studies, political theory, and Indigenous studies, creating interdisciplinary conversations about challenging political issues from cultural genocide to gambling policy. She has developed innovative theoretical frameworks like "finopower" to analyze the intersections between financial systems and gambling cultures.
Nicoll has received recognition through her appointment as Research Chair in Gambling Policy with the Alberta Gambling Research Institute. She is also the founding editor of the international journal Critical Gambling Studies and a founding member of the Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association.
As an academic mentor, Nicoll has supervised 13 PhD students to completion (with 3 currently in progress), 1 Masters student, and 2 post-doctoral research fellows. She developed the Gambling and Gaming Micro-credential course at the University of Alberta and teaches courses including Gaming: The Politics of Play and The Politics of Culture. Her teaching philosophy emphasizes creating mentally healthy and physically accessible classrooms while fostering self-reflexive inquiry and navigating power relations in educational settings.
