Dr Irene Watson

Welcome to my home page, I belong to the Tanganekald and Meintangk peoples and in colonial times our languages, peoples and lands became more commonly known as Ngarrindjeri. Our country lies across the Coorong and the south east of South Australia. I have worked as a legal practitioner and also been a member of the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement SA from 1973-2005. As an academic I have taught in all three South Australian universities from 1989 until current. I have worked internationally at the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations and have extensive experience working on questions of international law and Aboriginal peoples. Prior to taking up this position I was a research fellow with the University of Sydney Law School.

Indigenous Studies Research Network

Law and Land Master Class

Sex Discrimination Conference 2009 Paper Presentation

• Aboriginal Knowledges, Culture and Law
• Post-colonial Studies
• International Law and Aboriginal Peoples
• Critical Legal Theory
• Aboriginal History

Juvenile Justice Review Board South Australia

Kungari Aboriginal Cultural Association.

Editorial Board Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Journal

Editorial Board Alter Natives Journal

Indigenous Studies Research Network

International Advisory Board Feminist Legal Studies

Editorial Board International Journal Critical Indigenous Studies

PhD awarded 2000 University of Adelaide, awarded Bonython Law School prize for best Phd Thesis.

LLM 1993 University of Adelaide

LLB 1985 University of Adelaide

Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice 1985 University of South Australia

Admitted Legal Practitioner Supreme Court South Australia, 1985.

Diploma in Aboriginal Studies 1981 University of South Australia.

• Aboriginal Peoples and Domestic/International Laws
• Aboriginal knowledges
• Critical Legal Theory
• Feminist Theory
• Native Title

BOOKS `Looking at you, looking at me...Aboriginal culture and history of the south-east of South Australia, (self published Adelaide) Volume 1, 2002

BOOK CHAPTERS

'Assimilation Agendas of the State: What Space Remains for Aboriginal Law and Culture?' in Priti Singh (ed.), Indigenous Identity and Activism (New Delhi: Shipra, 2009), pp. 124-137.

“Aboriginal Women’s Laws and Lives: How Might We Keep Growing the Law? (eds) Martin Hinton, Daryl Rigney, Elliott Johnston, Indigenous Australians and the Law, (Routledge-Cavendish:Oxon 2008.

“Standing our Ground and Telling the ‘One True Story,’ ” (ed) Pat Dudgeon, Australian Indigenous Women’s Intellectual Traditions and Gendered Writings, Darwin: Batchelor Press, (2009 forthcoming)

“Settled and Unsettled Spaces: Are we Free to Roam?” (ed) Aileen Moreton-Robinson, Sovereign Subjects: Indigenous Critical Engagement, Allen and Unwin, North Sydney, 2007.

“Aboriginal Sovereignties: Past, Present and Future (Im)Possibilities” (ed) Suvendrini Perera, Our Patch, Enacting Australian Sovereignty Post-2001, (Network Books Symposia Series, Australia Research Unit, Curtin University of Technology, 2007, 23-43.

“Internationalising, Humanising and Diversifying: the one nation state”, (ed) Baden Offord, Elisabeth Porter, Activating Human Rights, Peter Lang European Academic Publishers, Bern 2006, 256-271.

“Raw Law”, (ed) Isabelle Schulte-Tenckhoff , Altérité et droit: contributions à l'étude du rapport entre droit et culture: Alterity and Law: contributing to the study of the relationship between law and culture, Brussels, Bruylant, 2001.

“One Indigenous Perspective on Human Rights”, (ed) Sam Garkawe, Loretta Kelly, Warwick Fisher, Indigenous Human Rights, (Sydney Institute of Criminology Monograph Series, Sydney 2000).

‘Reconciliation’, (eds) Martin Hinton, Daryle Rigney and Elliot Johnston Indigenous Australians and the Law, 1997, Cavendish, UK, 213.

‘Nungas in the Nineties’, (ed) Greta Bird, Gary Martin, Jennifer Nielsen, Majah Indigenous Peoples and the Law 1996 1.

‘Surviving as a People’ (ed) Jocelyne Scutt, Breaking Through:Women, Work and Careers (1991) Melbourne: Artemis Publishers.

REFEREED JOURNAL ARTICLES

“Sovereign spaces, caring for country and the homeless position of Aboriginal peoples” 2009 108:1 South Atlantic Quarterly, pp27-51

"Aboriginality and the Violence of Colonialism", 2009 Vol 8. No 1. Borderlands e journal,

“In the Crusade, What is being Protected and What is being Saved?” 2009 Cultural Studies Review September

“'Universal Human Rights v Cultural Relativism: What's Culture Got To Do With It?' (ed) Thy Nguyen & Nina Valentine in Pandora's Box: 'Never bend your head, Always hold it high, Look the world straight in the eye', Annual Academic Journal, Women and the Law Society, The University of Queensland, 2007, 48-56.

“Aboriginal Women’s Laws and Lives: How Might We Keep Growing the Law?” (2007) 26 Australian Feminist Law Journal 95.

“The Aboriginal State of Emergency Arrived with Cook and the First Fleet” (2007) 26 Australian Feminist Law Journal 3.

“Decolonisation and Aboriginal Peoples: Past and Future Strategies” (2007) 26 Australian Feminist Law Journal 111.

“Responses to Peter Sutton”, (2006) 6 Macquarie Law Journal 184.

“Illusionists and Hunters: being Aboriginal in this occupied space” (2005) 25, Australian Feminist Law Journal, 15

“Some reflections on Teaching Law: Whose Law, Yours or Mine?” (2005) 6 (8) Indigenous Law Bulletin, 23.

“Settled and Unsettled Spaces” (2005) 1 Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association Journal.

“From a Hard Place to Softer Terrain” (2005) 7 (2) Flinders Journal for Law Reform, 205

“Growing up the Space: a Conversation About the Future of Feminism”, (2004) Australian Feminist Law Journal, 95

“Buried Alive” (2002) 13 (3) Law and Critique 253-269.

‘There is No Possibility of Rights Without Law: So Until Then, Don’t Thumb Print or Sign Anything!’ (2000) 5 Indigenous Law Bulletin 4.

‘Kaldowinyeri’ (1999) 3 Flinders Journal of Law Reform 1.

‘The Power of Muldarbi and the road to its demise’, (1998) 11, Australian Feminist Law Journal 28.

‘Naked People’s Rules and Regulations’, (1998) 4 Law Text and Culture 1.

‘Book Review: Killing Rage, Ending Racism’, (1997) 22, 3, Alternative Law Journal.

‘Indigenous Peoples’ Law Ways: Survival Against the Colonial State’ (1997) 8 Australian Feminist Law Journal 39.

‘The Impact of Colonialism on Indigenous Culture and Law’, (1996) 14 Law in Context 107.

‘First Nations’ International Court of Justice: A Time to Begin’, (1996) 3 (7) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 9.

‘How far is there to travel in achieving Indigenous Rights?’ (1993) 3 Law Society Journal of NSW , 30.

‘Has Mabo Turned the Tide for Justice? (1993) 12 Social Alternatives 1.

‘1993: International Year of Indigenous Peoples’, (1992) 2 (59) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 11.

I am able to provide media comment in the following areas of expertise:

Discipline: Law

• Aboriginal Peoples and the Law
• Human Rights
• Native Title