Erin Fitz-Henry

Erin Fitz-Henry is an Associate Professor in Anthropology in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne, Faculty of Arts. She holds a PhD in Anthropology from Princeton University obtained in 2010 and a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School. Her academic career at the University of Melbourne began following her doctoral studies, progressing from Lecturer to Senior Lecturer and then to Associate Professor in 2023. She serves as Discipline Chair of Anthropology and Development Studies and is Co-Convenor of the Politics and Policy stream in Melbourne Climate Futures. Fitz-Henry's research examines multispecies justice, the rights of nature movement, environmental rights tribunals, slow violence, petroleum politics, energy sovereignty, Sumak Kawsay, and decolonizing personhood, with a primary focus on Ecuador. Her ethnographic work explores battles over legal animism in the rights of nature framework, corporate personhood challenges by energy companies, and the temporalities of nonhuman others in environmental contexts.

Key publications include the forthcoming book Institutionalising Multispecies Justice (Cambridge University Press, 2025); 'The ‘rights of nature’ in an age of white supremacy?' (Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 2023); 'Multi-species justice: a view from the rights of nature movement' (Environmental Politics, 2021); 'Conjuring the past: Slow violence and the temporalities of environmental rights tribunals' (Time and Society, 2019); US Military Bases and Anti-Military Organizing: An Ethnography of an Air Force Base in Ecuador (2015); and 'Multiple Temporalities and the Nonhuman Other' (Environmental Humanities, 2017). She leads the project 'The Rights of Nature in Ecuador: Battles Over Legal Animism.' Her scholarship contributes to environmental anthropology, influencing discussions on reparative transformations, climate reparations, and inter-cultural public spheres contesting global coloniality. Fitz-Henry coordinates subjects such as Power, Ideology and Inequality (ANTH30005).

Professional Email: erinfh@unimelb.edu.au