Associate ProfessorÂ
3690 Peel StreetÂ
Room 304
Montreal Quebec
Canada H3A 1W9
514-398-8147 [Office]
kirsten.anker [at] mcgill.ca (Email)
Biography
Kirsten Anker teaches property, legal theory and Aboriginal law/Indigenous legal traditions, with research interests extending also to evidence, dispute resolution, resource management and legal education. Her book Declarations of Interdependence: A Legal Pluralist Approach to Indigenous Rights explores various aspects of claiming Native (Aboriginal) Title as a way to inspire a re-imagination of law. She has written widely on the challenge to orthodox understandings of law and sovereignty posed by the recognition in Australia and Canada that Indigenous law âintersectsâ or co-exists with state law, and draws on studies in legal theory, anthropology, Indigenous and occidental philosophy, translation and language. Current projects include work on Indigenous legal traditions in formal legal education, non-static digital mapping in land claims, the privatisation of Indigenous consultation, and ecological jurisprudence.
Employment
- Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Ă汱ǿŒé, 2016-
- Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Ă汱ǿŒé, 2007-2016
- Visiting Lecturer, London School of Economics Faculty of Law, 2006
- Boulton Fellow, Faculty of Law, Ă汱ǿŒé, 2004
- Associate Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney, 2000-2003
- Instructor, AUSAID Indonesia/Australia Specialist Training Project in Intellectual Property, Faculty of Law, University of Technology, Sydney, 2000-2001
Awards
- Richard M. Buxbaum Prize for Teaching in Comparative Law, American Society of Comparative Law
Education
- PhD University of Sydney
- LLB University of Sydney
- BSc University of Sydney, Physics
Areas of interest
Property law, Aboriginal peoples and the law, Indigenous jurisprudence, legal theory, legal anthropology/sociology, science studies, law and language
Selected publications
Books/Monographs
- Kirsten Anker, Peter Burdon, Geoffrey Garver, Michelle Maloney and Carla Sbert (eds), (London: Routledge, 2021)
- Kirsten Anker, (Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, 2014)
Chapter 4 reprinted in Tove Skutnabb-Kangas and Robert Phillipson (eds), Language Rights (London: Routledge, 2016)
Peer-Reviewed Articles
- âAboriginal Title and Alternative Cartographiesâ (2018) 11(1) Erasmus Law Journal 14-30. .
- âLaw As⊠Forest: Eco-logics, Stories and Spirits in Indigenous Jurisprudenceâ (2017) 21 Law Text Culture 191-213. .
- âReconciliation in Translation: Indigenous Legal Traditions and Canadaâs Truth and Reconciliation Commissionâ (2016) 33(1) Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice 15-43. .
- âTranslating Sui Generis Aboriginal Rights and the Civilian Imaginationâ in Les intraduisibles en droit civil (Montreal: ThĂ©mis, 2014). .
- âTeaching âIndigenous Peoples and the Lawâ: Whose Law?â (2008) 33:3 Alternative Law Journal 132. .
- âThe Truth in Painting: Cultural Artefacts as Proof of Native Titleâ (2005) 9 Law Text Culture 91. Reprinted in Eve Darian-Smith, Laws and Societies in Global Contexts: Contemporary Approaches (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). .
Books chapters
- with Mark Antaki, âImaginationâ in Karen Crawley, Thomas Giddens and Timothy Peters (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Cultural Legal Studies (London: Routledge forthcoming)
- with Mark Antaki, âThe Superfactual Anthropocene and Encounters with Indigenous Legal Traditionsâ in Peter Burdon and James Martel (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Law and the Anthropocene (London: Routledge, 2023)
- âPlural Propertyâ in Nicole Graham, Margaret Davies and Lee Godden (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Property, Law and Society (London: Routledge, 2023)
- âTo Be is To Be Entangled: Indigenous Treaty-Making, Relational Legalities and the Ecological Grounds of Lawâ in Nico Krisch (ed), Entangled Legalities Beyond the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021)
- âIndigenous Law: What non-Indigenous People Can Learn From Indigenous Legal Thoughtâ in Mariana Valverde, Kamari M. Clarke, Eve Darian Smith, and Prabha Kotiswaran (eds), (London: Routledge, 2021)
- âEcological Law and Indigenous Relational Ontologies: Beyond the âEcological Indianâ?â in Kirsten Anker, Peter Burdon, Geoffrey Garver, Michelle Maloney and Carla Sbert (eds), (London: Routledge, 2021). .
- ââColonialism and Access to a Disenchanted Earthâ in YaĂ«ll Emerich et Laurence Saint-Pierre Harvey (eds), (Montreal: ThĂ©mis, 2019). .
- âPostcolonial Jurisprudence and the Pluralist Turn: From Making Space to Being in Placeâ in Nicole Roughan and Andrew Halpin (eds), In Pursuit of Pluralist Jurisprudence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017) (pp.261-293)
- âLaw, Culture and Fact in Indigenous Claims: Legal Pluralism as a Problem of Recognitionâ in RenĂ© Provost (ed), Centaur Jurisprudence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016)
- âContextualizing Governanceâ in Daniel Jutras, Rosalie Jukier and Richard Janda, The Unbounded Level of the Mind: Rod Macdonaldâs Legal Imagination (Montreal: Ă汱ǿŒé-Queens University Press, 2015)
- "Symptoms of Sovereignty? Apologies, Indigenous Rights and Reconciliation in Australia and Canada" in Peer Zumbansen and Ruth Buchanen (eds), Law in Transition: Human Rights, Development and Transitional Justice (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2014).
Book Reviews
- âBook Review: Aboriginal Title and Indigenous Peoples: Canada, Australia and New Zealandâ (2012) 85 Pacific Affairs 446
- âWe, the Nomads: A Review of Lawscape: Property, Environment, Lawâ (2011) 7 Ă汱ǿŒé International Journal of Sustainable Development Law & Policy 233
Other
- âBetween a Rock and a Sacred Place: The Limits of Aboriginal Title and Freedom of Religion in Ktunaxa v. BCâ IACL-AIDC Blog (International Association of Constitutional Law) 17 August 2018
- Special Issue Guest Editor â Signs in and of Place: Indigenous Issues in the Semiotics of Law, (2015) 28(4) International Journal for the Semiotics of Law
- with Ben Hightower, âIntroduction: (Re)Imagining Law: Marginalised Bodies/Indigenous Spacesâ (2015) 28(4) International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 1-8
- Indigenous Legal Traditions and Indian Residential Schools: Law, Sovereignty and Reconciliation in Translation (May 2013) Working Paper prepared for the Canadian Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission
- 'Landâ (June 2012) Ă汱ǿŒé Companion to Law