Dr Jana Norman

Jana is an interdisciplinary environmental humanities researcher interested in the theory and practice of rethinking human-nature relations. With expertise in posthuman critical theory, critical ecological feminism, new materialism, and relational ontology and methodology, Jana publishes and presents research findings across a range of fields. Her work has appeared in journals such as the Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, Continuum Journal of Media and Cultural Studies and Alternative Law Journal, as well as Saltbush Review, Sydney Review of Books and The Conversation. 

Current publications include a review of Reimagining Urban Nature: Literary Imaginaries for Posthuman Cities by Chantelle Bayes (Liverpool University Press, 2023) in the Australian Journal for Environmental Education and the collaboratively produced chapter  “Saltfish: Ecologies of Creative Processes” (with Alessandro Antonello, Tully Barnett, Jennifer Eadie, Amy Matthews, Stephen Muecke and Stephen Zagala) in New Materialist Affirmations: Creative Research Interventions in Methods and Practice (edited by Anna Hickey-Moody, Suvi Pihkala, Gretchen Coombs and Marissa Willcox (Edinburgh University Press, 2025). 

Jana’s book Posthuman Legal Subjectivity: Reimagining the human in the Anthropocene (Routledge 2021) was awarded the History and Theory Book Prize (Socio-Legal Studies Association, UK) and the Chris Beasley Prize for Gender and Sexuality Theory (Fay Gale Centre for Research on Gender, University of Adelaide). In the book, Jana challenges bedrock assumptions about human exceptionalism underpinning western legal theory and practice and develops an alternative, more ecologically accountable approach to understanding human-nature relations at law.    

Prior to joining the University of South Australia as Adjunct Research Fellow, Jana was an Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Research Fellow (2023-2025) at Deakin University. Her project, “Mapping Shadows of the Bight: New Methodologies for Collaborative Futures”, produced a multi-disciplinary arts and humanities residency on the Far West Coast of South Australia. The residency focused on methodologies of encounter rather than extraction and the concept of “shadow places” developed by Australian philosopher Val Plumwood. 

Outcomes of the Mapping Shadows of the Bight residency are on-going and include: (1) collaborative publications (Jana Norman, Emily Potter, Lee Harrop, Mandy Treagus, Prudence Black, and Stephen Muecke. 2024. “Mapping Shadows of the Bight: A Road Trip Residency.” Continuum 39 (1): 161–83. doi:10.1080/10304312.2024.2394960 and Jana Norman and Emily Potter, "The original ‘secret spot’ on the edge of the desert: Negotiations and contestations of place at Cactus Beach SA" Annals of Leisure Research, forthcoming); (2) art installation of work by Mapping Shadows of the Bight Collective member Lee Harrop (South Australia Drill Core Library, 2024); (3) public exhibition of collaboratively produced photographic works (The Goat Gallery, Natimuk Victoria, April 2025). 

Jana is currently working on a multispecies ethnography of the Australian native oyster. Her essay, “Thinking Multispecies Entanglement with Australia’s Subtidal Shadow Species, Ostrea angasi” was Highly Commended in the Inaugural Kay Schaffer Award administered by the International Australian Studies Association (2024).

Association for the Study of Environment, Literature and Culture (Australia and New Zealand)

Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (US)

Cultural Studies Association of Australasia