Kyle Willmott

Kyle Willmott is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Simon Fraser University. Prior to joining SFU, he was Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta. He is Mohawk from the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte First Nation (Tyendinaga). 

From January to August 2023, Dr. Willmott is a Senior Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Willmott is a political and economic sociologist interested in Indigenous-settler relations, settler colonialism, racialization, taxation, law, and policy. Dr. Willmott’s overarching interests are in the political and legal maintenance of inequality. His SSHRC-funded research agenda is currently focussed on two areas: (1) how fiscal politics are shaped by settler colonialism, racialization, and contention over property, law, and policy, and (2) the institutional construction of policy knowledge and expertise in relation to Indigenous nations. 

Dr. Willmott’s work is published in generalist and subfield, and interdisciplinary journals. His empirical and theoretical findings examine: fiscalized racism and the informal function of tax as a form of white political property in relation to Indigenous people (Law & Society Review); how taxpayer subjecthood is constructed through practices of state critique (Economy & Society); the organization of anti-Indigenous political discourse by neoliberal advocacy groups (Canadian Review of Sociology); the bureaucratic use of legal mechanisms around transparency and commensuration to reshape citizenship in First Nations (Critical Social Policy); and the politics of numbers and quantification in the surveillance of Indigenous political life (Surveillance & Society). 

Please see his website, kylewillmott.com for more information and to access .pdfs of his publications.

PhD (Sociology), Simon Fraser University
MA (Public Policy), Toronto Metropolitan University
BA (Sociology & Geography), University of Toronto 

Political Sociology; Economic Sociology; Fiscal Sociology; Taxation; Indigenous-settler Relations; Settler Colonialism; Critical Indigenous Policy Studies; Governmentality; Sociology of Knowledge & Science

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Kyle Willmott. 2023. Colonial Numbers: Quantification, Indigeneity and the Politics of Fiscal Surveillance. Surveillance & Society, 21 (1): 16-28.

Kyle Willmott. 2022. Taxes, Taxpayers, and Settler Colonialism: Toward a Critical Fiscal Sociology of Tax as White Property. Law & Society Review, 56(1): 6-27.

Media coverage: Aboriginal Peoples Television Network interview

Kyle Willmott & Alec Skillings. 2021. Anti-Indigenous Policy Formation: Settler Colonialism and Neoliberal Political Advocacy. Canadian Review of Sociology, 58(4): 513-530.

Media coverage: Press Progress, Rabble, AlbertaPolitics 

Kyle Willmott. 2020. From Self-Government to Government of the Self: Fiscal Subjectivity, Indigenous Governance and the Politics of Transparency. Critical Social Policy, 40(3): 271-291.

Kyle Willmott. 2017. Taxpayer governmentality: Governing government in Metro Vancouver’s transit tax debate. Economy and Society, 46(2): 255-274. 

Book Chapters

Kyle Willmott. Forthcoming. Tax, Subjectivity, and Indigenous Citizenship: Theorizing Tax and Colonialism. In Robin Smith, Johanna Mugler & Miranda Sheild Johansson (Eds.), Anthropology and Tax: Ethnographies of Fiscal Relations. Cambridge University Press.

Kyle Willmott. 2022. How Tax, Citizenship, and Fiscalized Racism Shapes Indigenous-Settler Relations. In Johanne Jean-Pierre, Vanessa Watts, Carl James, Patrizia Albanese, Xiaobei Chen & Michael Graydon (Eds.), Reading Sociology: Decolonizing Canada, 4th Ed. Oxford University Press

Kyle Willmott. 2019. Mobilizing political strategy: Global practices of taxpayer groups. In D. Laycock (ed.) Political Ideology in Parties, Policy and Civil Society. University of British Columbia Press.

2021-2024 SSHRC Insight Development Grant, Principal Investigator.
Making Indigenous Policy in Canadian Think Tanks

2020 Killam Cornerstone Operating Grant (University of Alberta), Principal Investigator
The Making of Expertise on Indigeneity in Canadian Think Tanks

Kyle Willmott. 2021. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s politics are anti-Indigenous — so why do media outlets still quote them? The Conversation.

Kyle Willmott. 2021. Taxes, Taxpayers, and Settler Colonialism. Spiegel Sohmer Tax Policy Colloquium. McGill University Faculty of Law.