jessica weir

I have always been interested in the place where social justice and ecological justice debates meet and where they do not.   I have come to realise that we have to resituate our human selves within the ecologies that support us.  By doing so, we can acknowledge the embeddedness of social and ecological issues, and be better able to make decisions that sustain life.  I find the philosophy of country, as articulated by many Indigenous people in Australia, a particularly usefully analytical framework to work with. 
 
Currently I work as a Research Fellow in Native Title Research Unit at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.  I have a research agreement with native title holders in the West Kimberley to document their experiences with holding and managing native title.  I am also working to extend our understandings of native title within the context of ecological relationships.  In 2009 I published a book arising out of my doctoral thesis, which engages with the experiences of traditional owners along Australia’s devastated Murray River.  They taught me connectivity thinking. This work is detailed on my Ecological Dialogue project page.



Recent Selected Publications

  • Weir, J. (ed) forthcoming. Native Title, Ecology and Country, ANU Epress.
  • Weir, J. 2009. Murray River Country: An Ecological Dialogue with Traditional Owners, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, pp.i-xvi, 1-175
  • Weir, J. 2009. 'The Gunditjmara Land Justice Story', Research Monograph 1/2009, Native Title Research Unit, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra, pp.1-40, with DVD-Rom by Amy Williams.
  • Strelein, L. and J. Weir. 2009 ‘Conservation and Human Rights in the Context of Native Title in Australia’, book chapter in Campese, J, Sunderland, TCH, Greiber, T, and G Oviedo, (eds). Exploring Issues and Opportunities in Rights Based Approaches to Conservation, CIFOR, IUCN and CEESP, Bogor, Indonesia, pp.123-140.
  • Weir, J. 2008 'Connectivity', Australian Humanities Review, 45, pp.153-164
  • Weir J and S Ross 2007 “Beyond Native Title: Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations”, in F Morphy and B R Smith (eds), The Social Effects of Native Title: Recognition, Translation, Coexistence, CAEPR Research Monograph No. 27, ANU E-Press.
  • Weir J. 2007 ‘Native title and Governance: the emerging corporate sector prescribed for native title holders’, Land, Rights, Laws: Issues of Native Title, 3(9):1-16. Native Title Research Unit, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.
  • Weir J. 2007 “The traditional owner experience along the Murray River”,  in E Potter, S Mackenzie, A Mackinnon, and J Mackay (eds), Fresh Water: New Perspectives on Water in Australia, Melbourne University Press.
  • Morgan M, Strelein L and J Weir. 2006 "Authority, knowledge and values: Indigenous Nations engagement in the management of natural resources in the Murray-Darling Basin", in M Langton, O Mazel, L Palmer, K Shain and M Tehan (eds) Settling with Indigenous peoples, The Federation Press, Sydney.
  • Morgan M, Strelein L and J Weir. 2004. Indigenous Rights to Water in the Murray Darling Basin, In support of the Indigenous final report to the Living Murray Initiative, Research Discussion Paper # 14, Native Title Research Unit, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra.
  • Strelein L, Dodson M and J Weir. 2001. Understanding Non-discrimination: Native Title Law and Policy in a Human Rights Context, Balayi: Culture, Law and Colonialism, Vol 3, pp 113-48.