Dr Saskia Vermeylen

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Personal statement

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Personal statement

I am a socio-legal property scholar contributing to related but distinctive research areas:

Cultural property: This work has been mainly developed around legal anthropology and I have developed new understandings of legal pluralism and customary law of indigenous peoples in the area of cultural property. I have conducted for over 15 years multi-site ethnography in 4 Southern African countries across 6 different San language groups. My recent empirical work has been funded by several SFC GCRF grants and focuses on cultural heritage and legal pluralism in Zimbabwe.
Property theory and ethics: I have developed a Levinasian based property theory which is conceptualised as property as generosity. In this work, I engage extensively with continental philosophy, besides Levinas, I also draw upon Jacques Derrida. Methodologically, I use phenomenology through literary studies with a strong focus on postcolonial literature which I apply to different concepts of property.
Property frontiers: I critique the extension of liberal property discourses into new and accelerated property regimes with a specific focus on outer space and the common heritage principle. This research is methodologically strongly embedded in literary studies with a very strong focus on AfricanFUTURISM, ecocriticism and science fiction. Increasingly this work also extends to visual and performative art, including curating, commissioning and developing site-specific arts. Some of this research has been funded through a Leverhulme research fellowship (2019-2021). Together with the expertise I have gained in the area of legal pluralism, my arts-based enquiries around resource frontiers, have also shaped the methodology and focus of the One Ocean Hub.
Materialities of property: This body of work engages methodologically with feminist posthumanism, eco-philosophy and speculative philosophy and I apply this to new property regimes in the area of microbes, deep seabed and fugitive natural resources. This research is funded by an AHRC project on rights of rivers and I will soon be hosting a Marie Curie Fellow working on a common property regime for microbes.

My teaching in the areas of legal theory and environmental justice and ethics is inspired by border pedagogy and epistemologies from the South.

I am also passionate about research supervision and I am currently the PGR co-director in the law school.

Publications

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Publications

From the intercellular to the extraterrestrial : the need for interdisciplinary spatial study: Stock Paul, Oliveira Sonja, Vermeylen Saskia, Witte Kimia, Chatzimichali Anna, Spence Charles; Space and Culture, pp. 1-14 (2025); https://doi.org/10.1177/12063312251363083
UK Engagement with Space : Written Evidence Submitted by University of Strathclyde (SPA0033): Macdonald Malcolm, Anderson Heather, Bouis Agathe, Gardner Darran, Gribben Joshua, Orr Jonathan, Owens Steven, Vermeylen Saskia; (2025)
Relational Interdependence: Riffing on Margaret Davies’ EcoLaw: Legality, Life, and the Normativity of Nature through the Poetics of Relations and Symbiotic Knowing Routledge, 2022, 138 pp. ISBN 9780367652012 (paperback): Vermeylen Saskia; Journal of International Wildlife Law & Policy Vol 27, pp. 436-444 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1080/13880292.2024.2441613
Corporations and the duty of care for nature? An amicus curiae for the case of Vedanta Resources PLC and another v Lungowe and others: Vermeylen Saskia; UK Earth Law Judgments Reimagining Law for People and Planet (2024) (2024)
Indigenous peoples and the violence of ‘property’: can human rights law support decolonisation?: Vermeylen Saskia, Gilbert Jeremie, Cobei Cindy; Research Handbook on Property Law and Theory (2024) (2024)
Are ecological processes that select beneficial traits in agricultural microbes nature's intellectual property rights?: Kothamasi David, Vermeylen Saskia, Deepika Sharma; Nature Biotechnology Vol 41, pp. 1381–1384 (2023); https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-023-01966-7

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Research

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Professional Activities

Strathclyde Centre for Environmental Law & Governance and Norwegian Centre for the Law of the Sea Joint Workshop on Rights of Nature: Participant; 15/9/2023
Hospitality and the humanising of the UK’s asylum laws and policy: Speaker; 6/2/2023
Simon Makuvaza: Host; 6/2019
Property Theory and Nomadic Thinking: Speaker; 25/7/2018
Space Law and Science Fiction Literature: Speaker; 27/5/2018
Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples: Speaker; 10/5/2018

More professional activities

Projects

Representing the Rights of Nature - Learning from the Mãori: Vermeylen, Saskia (Principal Investigator); 01-Jan-2022 - 01-Jan-2023
Exhibition EXTR-Activism Space Law and Afrofuturism: Vermeylen, Saskia (Principal Investigator); EXTR-Actvism presents artistic positions that challenge the new commercial space race for mineral extractivism. International space law - a product of the Cold War era - is ambiguous in its language as it is unclear if commercial mining, governed through private property rights, is allowed under the Outer Space Treaty (1967). The artworks selected for this exhibition explore the notions of extractivism and neo-colonialism of the commercial space era against the background of African countries developing their own space programme.

The exhibition retells the story of extractivism and space travel from the perspective of Afronauts. The forgotten histories, contested legacies and repressed memories of space travel are explored through a plethora of art practices that seek to blur the boundaries and distinctions between fiction and reality.; 01-Jan-2021 - 31-Jan-2021
Guardians of the Rivers" and the future of Earth Law: towards a new Legal, Ecological and Participatory (LEAP) model for Environmental Humanities?: Vermeylen, Saskia (Principal Investigator); 11-Jan-2020 - 11-Jan-2021
MICROB-COM Microbial Commons: Building a legal instrument for farmers rights on agricultural microbial resources H2020 MCSA-IF2019: Vermeylen, Saskia (Principal Investigator); 01-Jan-2020 - 30-Jan-2022
Rock art and cultural heritage law in Zimbabwe: Vermeylen, Saskia (Principal Investigator); This research addresses the San’s human right to access land and develop inclusive economic activities through tourism in Hwange national park in Zimbabwe. The project focuses specifically on recording and using cultural heritage as evidence of ancestral settlement and inclusive economic development in the national parks. The San have been exposed to land evictions dating back 2000 years ago when agriculturalists displaced them. Dispossession continued in the colonial period when their lands were appropriated to create national parks and private farms for colonial administrators. Unfortunately, evictions still exist after independence when new economic developments are being pursued such as tourism and mining.This research addresses the San’s human right to access land and develop inclusive economic activities through tourism in two national parks: Hwange in Zimbabwe and Chobe in Botswana. The project focuses specifically on recording and using cultural heritage as evidence of ancestral settlement and inclusive economic development in the national parks. The San have been exposed to land evictions dating back 2000 years ago when agriculturalists displaced them. Dispossession continued in the colonial period when their lands were appropriated to create national parks and private farms for colonial administrators. Unfortunately, evictions still exist after independence when new economic developments are being pursued such as tourism and mining. Combining law, archaeology and tourism, this project seeks to document the San’s cultural heritage in the national parks as evidence to support land claims and inclusive tourism.; 01-Jan-2019 - 31-Jan-2020
Global Challenges Research Fund Visiting Fellowship 2018-2019: Cultural heritage and land rights: Vermeylen, Saskia (Principal Investigator); Cultural tourism has been highlighted as one of the most important development opportunities for Africa. A recent World Bank Report stated that the rich intangible cultural heritage of Sub-Saharan Africa presents a substantial opportunity for tourism growth. Increasingly, cultural tourism can be used as a pathway for poverty alleviation, inclusive growth and place-based socio-economic development. Sustainable cultural tourism has the scope to reach the most marginalized communities who often live in remote rural areas where apart from tourism no other substantial opportunities exist for developing an inclusive business growth model. However, the opportunities that cultural tourism may offer are currently underexplored, because priority was given to developing wildlife tourism and a lack of understanding of the significance and economic potential of cultural heritage. Cultural heritage management has been mainly a by-product of colonialism, and the colonial scientific approach towards cultural heritage management continued after de-colonisation resulting in the alienation of local communities from their own cultural heritage. For local communities to benefit from the nexus tourism-development, changes need to be made in the regulation and management of cultural heritage. This project will contribute directly to this process by investigating how an intimate understanding of traditional custodianship can contribute to more sustainable, effective and inclusive cultural heritage management practices. This will require the adoption of a legal framework that is based on legal pluralism. A combination of local, national and international cultural heritage management laws and regulations can provide a robust, inclusive and just legal framework as part of an increasing role culture can play in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, specifically in the areas: of access to land and natural resources (SDGs 1, 2, 6, 8, 15) and recognition of human rights of indigenous peoples (SDGs 1, 4, 8, 10 and 16).; 01-Jan-2019 - 31-Jan-2019