Melanie Wiber

Biography

Dr. Melanie G. Wiber is an economic and legal anthropologist. She joined the University of New Brunswick in 1987 and has been Full Professor of Anthropology since 1995. She conducted her doctoral research on water, land and gold mining property rights among an upland minority group in the Philippines (see Politics, Property and Law in the Philippine Uplands, WLU Press, 1994). After joining UNB, Dr. Wiber completed a study of gender in human evolution imagery (see Erect Men/Undulating Women: The Visual Imagery of Gender, Race and Progress in Reconstructive Illustrations of Human Evolution, WLU Press, 1997). She then did research in the dairy industry, examining the impact of supply management and dairy quota. This led to an interest in the property aspects of fisheries quota, and for the past fifteen years, Dr. Wiber has conducted participatory, community-based, fisheries research in the Maritime Provinces. This research has focused on natural resource management, community-based management, local ecological knowledge and property rights.

Research Interest

Anthropology