Ms. DeVries [Vreugdenhil] received her BA from St. Stephen’s University in St. Stephen, NB and she begins doctoral studies at the University of Waterloo in September 2013. Sandra's SSHRC funded MA research at Windsor focuses on the connections between testimony, social epistemology and Sen’s ideas of justice in a transitional context. Her work acts as a criticism of the traditional, institutional model of justice as exclusionary toward testimonies and considerations of situated, phenomenal experiences provoked by the implementation of certain laws. Placing an emphasis on an ideal of justice, as opposed to the emergent capabilities and experiences of laws, the institutional model effectively reduces the ability of members of the judiciary and citizens alike to recognize ways in which the same policies that they might consider just act as injustice to people who live under the same laws, but under different personal circumstances.
Sandra brings her research to examine the practices of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Canada, with a goal of understanding the effects of the residential schools through the stories of those who were victimized by Canadian policy. It is her hope that the development of a more robust inclusion of testimony to the accounts of the TRC which are made available to the public will result in a better understanding and the growth of new policies which will enable not only truth, but a reduction of injustice, both present and future.