Interdisciplinary Graduate Research Program in Indigenous Settler Relations
The Interdisciplinary Graduate Research Program in Indigenous Settler Relations is open to graduate researchers in any faculty undertaking graduate research related to the emerging field of Indigenous settler relations in Australia and the world.
The program connects students with researchers across disciplines, fostering an engaged and supportive intellectual community, and creating a strong cohort experience for the duration of their study. The program deepens academic understandings, and enhances interdisciplinary knowledge exchange on research that leads to more just relations between Indigenous and settler peoples. Students are supported to build networks across the University and with relevant external organisations and to develop their research in reference to current real-world challenges.
Activities throughout the year include exclusive masterclasses, a research symposium, writing retreats, and a reading group, as well as access to the suite of public seminars, lectures and film screenings run by the Australian Centre. Opportunities are available to meet regularly throughout each semester to share research progress and to participate in writing sessions, critical reading groups and workshops focused on ethics, research methodology and approaches for communicating research to diverse audiences across and beyond the academy.
The program enriches the graduate research experience by creating a strong cohort and intellectual community that assists students in developing their post-degree pathways.
Eligible students must have commenced a PhD or Masters by Research. Priority will be given to students who have at least one supervisor based at the University of Melbourne. Students from other institutions will need a statement of support from their supervisors for their applications to be considered.
Participant testimonials
This program is an exceptional feat of organization. The handbook was extremely useful, the speakers were exceptional, the communication from program staff was perfect. Thank you so much for providing this incredible resource!
I’ve appreciated the fantastic community, support, and resources provided in this program to date and would heartily recommend it to other graduate students working in this area. Thank you to all those involved in creating and maintaining it.
I’m really enjoying the program! I feel like I can only dip in and out when I have the time, but have attended most masterclasses and workshops. They have been really helpful and expanded my thinking beyond my own research project, and made me think about the connections between my work and contemporary research practices.
The opportunities for learning and support through the program has been excellent. The on-campus opening event for the research program has remained a highlight of my academic year.
100% think this is an amazing opportunity and am beyond grateful. I love the idea of this being a place to build a community of practice – where early career researchers and PhD students can learn and improve research practices.
As a regional person, being able to participate remotely was absolutely fantastic and made it actually possible. And I really enjoyed the benefits of having people from all over participating – so interesting. I am really grateful for the excellent reading lists, and will keep working through them into the future. But most importantly I’ve really valued being connected in with a group of people who share similar values and a supportive ethos. I haven’t found that anywhere within my faculty really. I seriously hope that these connections can continue into the future – a PhD takes a long time! I’m super grateful for the opportunity and all the work that’s gone into creating the program. I’m excited to think of the work, in all its diversity, that will grow from it. A huge Thank You. I hope I can do some good work in response!!
The program provided a supportive environment in which I could ask for insights, help, and network with like-minded individuals. It facilitated great spaces for discussion and to deepen my knowledge on Indigenous-settler relations, and I always found that I was able to learn something new (even if I thought I already knew a lot about a given topic). The speakers were incredible and it was great that the reading list was comprehensive and appeared to cover a lot of different knowledge bases. Under the circumstances of the pandemic, the program did an amazing job at creating a community. I also enjoyed the fact that there is a wide array of activities available, which meant that you could miss a few and be more selective about those that you wanted to attend. I also enjoyed the complimentary nature of the sessions such as the webinars and masterclasses/workshops.
Our graduate research program is designed to enhance the experience of Masters and PhD students by creating an enriching cohort experience that develops an intellectual community and facilitates opportunities to deepen students’ academic knowledge and skills.
The program is informed by approaches to doctoral pedagogy grounded in student-centred and transformative praxis. Drawing on the work of Michelle Trudgett (2014) and inspiration from the Maori and Indigenous (MAI) (Pihama et al., 2019) and Supporting Aboriginal Graduate Enhancement (SAGE) (Pidgeon et al., 2014) programs, our graduate research program is based on and promotes Indigenous doctoral pedagogy as best practice for all students.
The Interdisciplinary Graduate Research Program is focused around a series of masterclasses delivered by scholars presenting in the Australian Centre's critical public conversation seminar series. The masterclasses are supplemented with a set of research development activities designed to accelerate research careers of students engaged in the program:
- workshops focused on ethics, research methodology, approaches for communicating research to diverse audiences across and beyond the academy,
- research symposium,
- writing retreats.
In addition to the core program, the Australian Centre facilitates a range of regular, open events and activities that we warmly invite you to join, including the seminar series, our critical reading group, public lectures and film screenings. We also invite students in the program to meet regularly throughout each semester to share research progress and to participate in writing sessions.
2023 Program
February 2023
Welcome Event
Date: Friday 24 February
March 2023
Launch of the Australian Centre
Director Professor Sarah Maddison, Deputy Director Dr Julia Hurst and the team warmly invite you to join us to launch the Australian Centre’s 2023 research program titled Country, Climate, Colonialism.
Date: Wednesday 1 March
Co-working sessions: March Shut Up and Write
This is the first of the monthly group writing sessions. Shut Up and Write sessions are useful to make your writing more focused, set aside some dedicated writing time, build a sense of community around your writing, minimise procrastination, and increase motivation.
Date: Tuesday 14 March
Workshop: Research ethics
An ethical starting point for relational work is the understanding that ‘the relations between Indigenous peoples, settlers, and the settler state [is] the focal point of inquiry rather than the lives and bodies of Indigenous peoples’ (Nakata & Maddison, 2019, p. 419). Thus we seek to decentre disciplinary authority to know Indigenous peoples, and prioritise the relations between Indigenous peoples and the settler order.This workshop will explore both the ethical principles for relational research, and critical reflections on navigating ethics approval processes.
Presenters: Dr. Kim Alley, Dr. Dan Tout, Professor Karen Farquharson|
Date: Monday 20 March
April 2023
Masterclass
An exclusive session with the presenter of this month’s Critical Public Conversation series focused on exploring the key themes and questions raised in their presentation on Cultural water for cultural economies.
Presenter: Dr. Erin O'Donnell
Date: Monday 3 April
Workshop: Indigenous storywork
This seminar will examine innovative practices in research which interrogate the life and positionality of the researcher as part of the design of the project, including concepts like storywork, standpoint, and strong objectivity. We will discuss how these practices are being implemented by the workshop participants and talk through the complications of utilising them in Indigenous research.
Presenter: Arlie Alizzi
Date: Wednesday 19 April
Co-working sessions: April Shut Up and Write
This is the second of the monthly group writing sessions. Shut Up and Write sessions are useful to make your writing more focused, set aside some dedicated writing time, build a sense of community around your writing, minimise procrastination, and increase motivation.
Date: Friday 28 April
May 2023
Masterclass
An exclusive session with the presenter of this month’s Critical Public Conversation series focused on exploring the key themes and questions raised in their presentation on Caring for Country: Deliberative policymaking.
Presenter: Justin McCaul
Date: Monday 2 May
Co-working sessions: May Shut Up and Write
May is the third monthly group writing session. These Shut Up and Write sessions use the Pomodoro technique to help to make your writing more focused. The idea is to set aside some dedicated writing time while building a sense of community around your writing.
Date: Tuesday 9 May
Workshop: Digital Settler Colonialism? Critical perspectives
The digital worlds we inhabit are shaped by profoundly unequal relations. Critical data studies emerged in recent decades as an interdisciplinary scholarly subfield dedicated to the denunciation and understanding of systematic modalities of subjection, marginalisation, dispossession, and domination. Contributing to this larger effort, this workshop explores the dynamics of digital settler colonialism: a mode of domination premised on the relentless appropriation of the online territories inhabited and curated by the digital natives, and on a logic of elimination.
Presenter: Lorenzo Veracini
Date: Monday 29 May
June 2023
Co-working sessions: June Shut Up and Write
June is the fourth monthly group writing session, the last for Semester 1. These Shut Up and Write sessions use the Pomodoro techniqueLinks to an external site. to help to make your writing more focused. The idea is to set aside some dedicated writing time while building a sense of community around your writing.
Date: Thursday 8 June
Workshop: Speak out/Geek out
“It's just a bunch of stuff, more or less sorted into an argument. Some of it's good, some of it isn't” (Richards, 2008, p. 20). As grad students and researchers, we often get excited about some pretty niche and deeply nerdy stuff, and then, we have to write it up. The process of writing, as we well know, can get pretty tough. Speak out/Geek out is a space to speak out loud something you’re trying to get your head around in your research. It’s also a space to share something exciting and geek out about it with your peers. You could share anything from half-formed thoughts to a flash of comprehension. We hope the workshop will help alleviate some writing challenges you are facing, introduce some excitement into the process, and reinforce the sense of community and camaraderie.
Presenter: Amanda Bertana, one of the Australian Centre visiting fellows
Date: Tuesday 6 June
Workshop: Sovereign Theory
How do non-Indigenous scholars who are committed to doing anticolonial research engage with Indigenous scholarship that works from Indigenous ontologies, methodologies and perspectives? This is an ethical and political question which confronts me, and many other settler researchers working in the areas of policy, politics, sociology, theory, ecology and anthropology. There are a range of positions on this question, and in this workshop I will discuss my own approach, which of course remains iterative and open to critique and which draws from the work of critical Indigenous scholars including Watego and Moreton-Robinson. The dominance of white experts claiming to know ‘about’ Indigenous lives continues to be a deeply problematic part of colonialism, and building upon a standpoint approach, I suggest that Indigenous scholarship has political and ontological priority. Yet prioritizing this work requires that non-Indigenous scholars engage with and in some cases use Indigenous analytics without claiming an ability to produce, access the ontological grounding of, or exercise authoritative judgement over, these analytics. In orienting ourselves to Indigenous intellectual sovereignty, it may be possible to enact forms of intellectual solidarity from a location of complicity. I look forward to hearing the approaches that others use, and to having a broader discussion around research as political action, sovereignty and solidarity across difference.
Presenter: Dr Liz Strakosch
Date: Tuesday 20 June
July 2023
Midyear Writing Retreat
Writing Retreats provide participants with structure, time, and encouragement to make progress on their writing in the company of other scholars. They are designed to provide you with the space to write as part of a community of productive student researchers. The program will include structured writing time, goal-setting and debriefing sessions, and the celebration of progress made.
Date: Tuesday 11 - Thursday 13 July
August 2023
Writing a research proposal workshop
Research proposals are a part of every academic’s working life, from PhD onwards. This workshop will introduce participants to a framework for developing a research proposal. Based around four simple questions, the framework will help participants to identify their central research question and outline a plan for how they will approach it. By the end of the workshop participants should have the tools they need to write a research proposal.
Presenter: Professor Sarah Maddison
Date: Tuesday 8 August
Co-working sessions: August Shut Up and Write
This is another monthly group writing session to set aside some dedicated writing time, build a sense of community around your writing, minimise procrastination, and increase motivation.
Date: Tuesday 15 August
Masterclass: Melinda Adams
An exclusive session with the presenters of this month’s Critical Public Conversation series, focused on exploring the key themes and questions raised in their presentation.
Presenters: Melinda M. Adams
Date: Tuesday 29 August (TBC)
September 2023
Co-working sessions: September Shut Up and Write
This is the sixth monthly group writing session. Shut Up and Write sessions are useful to make your writing more focused, set aside some dedicated writing time, build a sense of community around your writing, minimise procrastination, and increase motivation.
Date: Thursday 7 September
Publishing workshop
The publishing workshop is focused on exploring opportunities for disseminating research and building a publication profile in the field of Indigenous-settler relations. Core topics include developing a publication plan, identifying suitable journals, understanding the difference between writing for the thesis and writing for journals, develop an ethical politics of citation in the field of Indigenous-settler relations.
Presenter: Dr Ashley Barnwell
Date: September TBC
Masterclass: Survival Int. Fiore Longo
An exclusive session with the presenters of this month’s Critical Public Conversation series, focused on exploring the key themes and questions raised in the presentation about Survival International.
Presenter: Fiore Longo
Date: Thursday 21 September
Research collaborations workshop
Relations are the foundation of what we do, but what does it mean to be involved in research collaborations and projects oriented toward decolonisation and Indigenisation? In this workshop, presenter Andrew Herscher will talk us through Decolonising the Chicago Cultural Centre, a site-specific project for the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial. We will discuss the relations created to work in collaboration with the American Indian Centre, along with some of the building “annotations” and the afterlife of this project.
Presenter: Associate Professor Andrew Herscher
Date: Tuesday 26 September
October 2023
Insider/Outsider Research Workshop
Insider/outsider tensions imbue engaged qualitative research. How could they not? Who we are in the knowledge (co) production processes, and the relationships and distances we share with our fieldwork communities and spaces, matters intensely. In this session, we unpack some of the entanglements that come from our relationships to, and connections with, the communities we research. We invite participants to reflect on theoretical and practical interventions with respect to these tensions.
Presenters: Dr Julia Hurst & Dr Nicholas Apoifis
Date: Friday 6 October
Co-working sessions: October Shut Up and Write
This is the seventh monthly group writing session to make your writing more focused, set aside some dedicated writing time, build a sense of community around your writing, minimise procrastination, and increase motivation.
Date: Monday 16 October
Masterclass: Omar Tesdell
An exclusive session with the presenters of this month’s Critical Public Conversation series focused on exploring the key themes and questions raised in the presentation.
Presenters: Associate Professor Omar Tesdell
Date: TBC October
November 2023
Co-working sessions: November Shut Up and Write
November is the final monthly group writing session for the 2023 program.
Date: Thursday 2 November
Research Symposium
The Australian Centre Research Symposium is an opportunity for participants to showcase and share their excellent and innovative work in the field of Indigenous settler relations. We invite attendees to share their questions and critiques, experience and knowledge. We seek to create a space to have difficult conversations, which are essential for justice and our collective futures. We will focus on developing learning communities and creating conversations that will generate collaboration among scholars in the university setting.
Date: Monday 13 November
Australian Centre International Conference: A Profound Reorganising of Things
In 2023 the Student Research Symposium will be part of the international conference hosted by the Australian Centre titled: A Profound Reorganising of Things.
Date: Tuesday 14 - Wednesday 15 November
December 2023
End of year Writing Retreat
The End-of-year Writing Retreat is a residential Writing Retreat, there is no online component. This retreat is the only entirely in-person activity. The retreat combines quiet writing time with collegial discussions of both our work in progress and aspects of the writing process through optional informal workshops.
Dates: Sunday 3 - Friday 8 December
2022 Program
February 2022
Welcome Event
Date: Friday 25 February
March 2022
Launch of the Australian Centre
Director Professor Sarah Maddison, deputy director Dr Julia Hurst and the team warmly invite you to the launch of the revitalised Australian Centre.
Date: Wednesday 9 March, 3:45pm - 6pm (AEDT)
Welcome to Country
Wurundjeri Woi wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation
Performances
Djirri Djirri, Wurundjeri women's dance group
Les Thomas, singer-songwriter
Speakers
Yoo-rrook Justice Commissioner Sue-Anne Hunter
Professor Ghassan Hage, Chair of the Australian Centre Advisory Board
Professor Russell Goulbourne, Dean of Arts
Professor Sarah Maddison and Dr Julia Hurst, Australian Centre Directors
Refreshments
Mabu Mabu, Indigenous Owned Events & Catering, Bar & Kitchen
Masterclass
An exclusive session with the presenters of this month’s Critical Public Conversation series, focused on exploring the key themes and questions raised in their presentation.
Presenters: Professor Sarah Maddison and Dr Julia Hurst
Date: Thursday 24 March, 10:30am - 12pm (AEDT)
April 2022
Research Ethics Workshop
An ethical starting point for relational work is the understanding that ‘the relations between Indigenous peoples, settlers, and the settler state [is] the focal point of inquiry rather than the lives and bodies of Indigenous peoples’ (Nakata & Maddison, 2019, p. 419). Thus we seek to decentre disciplinary authority to know Indigenous peoples, and prioritise the relations between Indigenous peoples and the settler order.
This workshop will explore both the ethical principles for relational research, and critical reflections on navigating ethics approval processes.
Presenters: Dale Wandin, Dr Julia Hurst and Dr Ligia (Licho) López López
Date: Friday 22 April, 2pm - 4pm (AEST)
Study circle/Work in Progress session
This is a forum for participants to present, discuss, and develop your scholarship and an opportunity to talk about your research, methodologies, challenges, aspirations, and more with an established academic and your peers from the Program. Participants can bring work in progress, a concept, idea, question, piece of writing, text that you’ve read, or anything that you would like to consider with others. Each session will have a member of the Australian Centre’s academic community in attendance and the space is available for dialogue, input, feedback and sharing.
Facilitator: Professor Karen Farquharson
Date: Thursday 28 April, 1pm - 3pm (AEST)
May 2022
Migrants, Settlers, Sovereignties: A Workshop on Migration and Colonialism
Studies of Mediterranean migrations and diasporas in Australia have often been explored within a celebratory settler national frame of analysis. That is, the stories of Maltese, Greek, Italian, Turkish, Egyptian, Syrian, and Lebanese migrants in Australia have been framed as central to nation building developments. Narratives that showcase the migrant experience as a story of “struggle and success” have become a celebrated aspect of Australia’s past. Indeed, the story that migrants who arrived in an Anglo-British world that was largely hostile to their presence, worked hard to climb the steep ladder of social mobility to become prosperous, integrated, and, yet hyphenated Australians has become commonplace in public memory. In this sense, the experience of Mediterranean migrants settling in Australia has become a central story of the nation’s multicultural ethos. The acceptance and promotion of this migrant contribution narrative has buttressed colonial nation-building and acted to dispel the implications of past and present settler colonialisms.
This workshop, in different ways, contests this limited national framing of migration and settlement to Australia. Together, we will explore how it might be possible to realign historical stories of migration so that they engage with past and ongoing dynamics of colonialism. We will draw upon studies of Indigenous sovereignty, multicultural settler colonial structures, and migrant subjectivity to both broaden our understanding of migration and diversify stories of colonialism. Designed to disrupt and disentangle the prevailing dichotomy between settler-coloniser and colonised, the workshop aims to unravel how an assortment of individuals and groups from the Mediterranean region positioned themselves – despite being positioned as precariously white – as loyal to settler colonial ideas. We will also discuss how the cultural specificities of diasporic cultures have contributed to how migrant groups lay claim to the settler colonial worlds that they have come to call home.
This is a joint workshop with students from the Grad Program and the Melbourne Social Equity Institute’s PhD Program in Migration, Statelessness and Refugee Studies
Presenter: Dr Andonis Piperoglou
Date: Friday 13 May 10:30am - 12pm (AEST)
Masterclass
An exclusive session with the presenters of this month’s Critical Public Conversation series, focused on exploring the key themes and questions raised in their presentation.
Presenters: Dr Elizabeth Strakosch
Date: Friday 27 May 11am - 12pm (AEST)
Study circle/Work in Progress session
This is a forum for participants to present, discuss, and develop your scholarship and an opportunity to talk about your research, methodologies, challenges, aspirations, and more with an established academic and your peers from the Program. Participants can bring work in progress, a concept, idea, question, piece of writing, text that you’ve read, or anything that you would like to consider with others. Each session will have a member of the Australian Centre’s academic community in attendance and the space is available for dialogue, input, feedback and sharing.
Facilitator: Dr Kim Alley
Date: Monday 30 May, 1pm - 3pm (AEST)
June 2022
Study circle/Work in Progress session
This is a forum for participants to present, discuss, and develop your scholarship and an opportunity to talk about your research, methodologies, challenges, aspirations, and more with an established academic and your peers from the Program. Participants can bring work in progress, a concept, idea, question, piece of writing, text that you’ve read, or anything that you would like to consider with others. Each session will have a member of the Australian Centre’s academic community in attendance and the space is available for dialogue, input, feedback and sharing.
Facilitator: Dr Lou Bennett
Date: Thursday 9 June, 10:30am – 12:30pm (AEST)
Masterclass
An exclusive session with the presenters of this month’s Critical Public Conversation series, focused on exploring the key themes and questions raised in their presentation.
Presenters: Dr Archie Thomas
Date: Wednesday 22 June, 11:30am - 12:30pm (AEST)
July 2022
Winter Writing Retreat
Writing Retreats provide participants with structure, time, and encouragement to make progress on their writing in the company of other scholars. They are designed to provide you with the space to write as part of a community of productive student researchers.
The program will include structured writing time, goal setting and debriefing sessions and the celebration of progress made.
Dates: Tuesday 19 - Thursday 21 July [online]
August 2022
Study circle/Work in Progress session
This is a forum for participants to present, discuss, and develop your scholarship and an opportunity to talk about your research, methodologies, challenges, aspirations, and more with an established academic and your peers from the Program. Participants can bring work in progress, a concept, idea, question, piece of writing, text that you’ve read, or anything that you would like to consider with others. Each session will have a member of the Australian Centre’s academic community in attendance and the space is available for dialogue, input, feedback and sharing.
Facilitator: Associate Professor Jennifer Balint
Date: Thursday 4 August, 1:30pm – 3pm (AEST)
Masterclass 1
An exclusive session with the presenters of this month’s Critical Public Conversation series, focused on exploring the key themes and questions raised in their presentation.
Presenters: Dr Amy Spiers and Genevieve Grieves
Date: Tuesday 9 August, 10:30am - 12pm (AEST)
Publishing workshop
The publishing workshop is focused on exploring opportunities for disseminating research and building a publication profile in the field of Indigenous-settler relations. Core topics include:
- developing a publication plan
- identifying suitable journals
- understanding the difference between writing for the thesis and writing for journals
- develop an ethical politics of citation in the field of Indigenous-settler relations.
Presenter: Dr Ashley Barnwell
Date: Thursday 11 August, 10am - 11:30am (AEST)
Masterclass 2
An exclusive session with the presenters of this month’s Critical Public Conversation series, focused on exploring the key themes and questions raised in their presentation.
Presenters: Associate Professor Jessica Gerrard, Professor Arathi Sriprakash and Dr Sophie Rudolph
Date: Friday 19 August 3pm - 4:30pm (AEST)
September 2022
Study circle/Work in Progress session
This is a forum for participants to present, discuss, and develop your scholarship and an opportunity to talk about your research, methodologies, challenges, aspirations, and more with an established academic and your peers from the Program. Participants can bring work in progress, a concept, idea, question, piece of writing, text that you’ve read, or anything that you would like to consider with others. Each session will have a member of the Australian Centre’s academic community in attendance and the space is available for dialogue, input, feedback and sharing.
Facilitator: Associate Professor Jeanine Leane
Date: Thursday 8 September, 10am - 12pm (AEST)
Masterclass
An exclusive session with the presenters of this month’s Critical Public Conversation series, focused on exploring the key themes and questions raised in their presentation.
Presenters: Professor Kirsty Gover
Date: Tuesday 20 September, 11am – 12:30pm (AEST)
Writing a research proposal workshop
Research proposals are a part of every academic’s working life, from PhD onwards. This workshop will introduce participants to a framework for developing a research proposal. Based around four simple questions, the framework will help participants to identify their central research question and outline a plan for how they will approach it. By the end of the workshop participants should have the tools they need to write a research proposal.
Presenter: Professor Sarah Maddison
Date: Tuesday 27 September, 2pm – 3:30pm (AEST)
October 2022
Insider/Outsider Research Workshop
Insider/outsider tensions imbue engaged qualitative research. How could they not? Who we are in the knowledge (co) production processes, and the relationships and distances we share with our fieldwork communities and spaces, matters intensely. In this session we unpack some of the entanglements that come from our relationships to, and connections with, the communities we research. We invite participants to reflect on theoretical and practical interventions with respect to these tensions.
This is a joint workshop with students from the Grad Program and the Melbourne Social Equity Institute’s PhD Program in Migration, Statelessness and Refugee Studies
Presenters: Dr Julia Hurst & Dr Nicholas Apoifis
Date: Friday 7 October, 1pm - 2:30pm (AEDT)
November 2022
Masterclass
An exclusive session with the presenter of October’s Critical Public Conversation series, focused on exploring the key themes and questions raised in their presentation.
Presenter: Professor Kevin Bruyneel
Date: Wednesday 2 November, 10am - 11am (AEDT)
Research Symposium
The Australian Centre Research Symposium invites participants to showcase and share their excellent and innovative work in the field of Indigenous settler relations. We invite attendees to share their questions and critiques, experience and knowledge. We seek to create a space to have difficult conversations, which are essential for justice and our collective futures. We will focus on developing learning communities and creating conversations that will generate collaboration amongst scholars in the university setting.
The main aims of the symposium are:
- to bring together graduates working in different disciplines, within the Indigenous settler relations field, and to foster the exchange of information
- to help HDR scholars to progress their research themes
- to facilitate an opportunity for students to profile their topics and receive support/feedback from panels and peers
- to present successful pathways for organising and producing a thesis in the field
- to identify strategic issues in undertaking higher education in the field.
- to create an engaging space for Indigenous settler relations research
Dates: Wednesday 23 - Thursday 24 November
The album from the 2021 Symposium is available on the Australian Centre’s Facebook page.
December 2022
Summer Writing Retreat
Writing retreats provide participants with structure, time, and encouragement to make progress on their writing in the company of other scholars. They are designed to provide you with the physical and mental space to write as part of a community of productive student researchers.
The program will include structured writing time, facilitated workshops, and informal discussions, debriefing sessions and the celebration of progress made.
The Summer Writing Retreat will be held at Seacroft Estate on the Great Ocean Road.
Dates: Sunday 4 - Friday 9 December
The album from the 2021 Writing Retreat is available on the Australian Centre’s Facebook page.
Australia Centre Research Room
Room E672 in John Medley East (Building 191) is available to graduate program students during working hours. The room includes computers, desks, lockable cabinets, telephones and a meeting area with a large display screen. There is also access to a shared kitchenette with a fridge and microwave available on level 6.
2021 Program
February 2021
Welcome Event
Date: Friday 26 February
March 2021
Launch of the Graduate Research Program 2021
On Thursday March 4th join us in celebrating the official launch of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Research Program.
Date: Thursday 4 March, 12pm - 2pm (AEDT)
Welcome to Country and Smoking Ceremony
Wurundjeri Woi wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation
Speakers
Professor Russell Goulbourne, Dean Of Arts
Professor Sarah Maddison and Associate Professor Sana Nakata, ISRC Co-Directors
Musical Performance
Yorta Yorta Dja Dja Wurrung, Sovereign, singer, songwriter, language activist
Research Ethics Workshop
An ethical starting point for relational work is the understanding that ‘the relations between Indigenous peoples, settlers, and the settler state [is] the focal point of inquiry rather than the lives and bodies of Indigenous peoples’ (Nakata & Maddison, 2019, p. 419). Thus we seek to decenter disciplinary authority to know Indigenous peoples, and prioritise the relations between Indigenous peoples and the settler order.
This workshop will explore both the ethical principles for relational research, and critical reflections on navigating ethics approval processes.
Presenters: Dr Julia Hurst, Dr Ligia (Licho) López López, and Dale Wandin
Date: Friday 12 March, 2pm - 4pm (AEDT)
Masterclass
An exclusive session with the presenters of this month’s Critical Public Conversation series, focused on exploring the key themes and questions raised in their presentation.
Presenters: Professor Sarah Maddison and Associate Professor Sana Nakata
Date: Monday 29 March, 11am - 12pm (AEDT)
April 2021
Masterclass
An exclusive session with the presenters of this month’s Critical Public Conversation series, focused on exploring the key themes and questions raised in their presentation.
Presenters: Associate Professor Morgan Brigg and Dr Mary Graham
Date: Tuesday 13 April, 10am - 11am (AEST)
Research Methodology Workshop
The interdisciplinary methodological approach of the RHD program is a framework informed by relational ethics and self-reflexivity. Guided by the understanding that ‘research is not an innocent or distant academic exercise but an activity that has something at stake and that occurs in a set of political and social conditions’ (Smith, 2012, p. 5), the program seeks to encourage critical thought accompanied by research practices that are attentive to issues of accountability, respect, care, renewal and insurgency.
This workshop will focus on methodology: what it is and why it is at the centre of the research process – yet it is rendered almost completely invisible within Western research practices, regardless of methods used.
Presenter: Distinguished Professor Maggie Walter
Date: Thursday 22 April, 1pm - 3pm (AEST)
Critical Reading Group
Join article author Alfred Deakin Professor and Chair in Race Relations Yin Paradies to discuss his recent publication Unsettling truths: modernity, (de-)coloniality and Indigenous futures. Bring your questions, comments, feedback, thoughts, ideas, and feelings.
Presenter: Professor Yin Paradies
Date: Monday 26 April, 12pm - 2pm (AEST)
May 2021
Collaborator workshop
Collaborator workshops are conducted in partnership with a member of the ISRC academic network and provide the opportunity to engage beyond the CPC series and academic development workshops to focus on a key area of Indigenous-settler relations.
Presenter: Professor Adrian Little
Date: Wednesday 12 May, 11am - 1pm (AEST)
Masterclass
An exclusive session with the presenter of this month’s Critical Public Conversation series, focused on exploring the key themes and questions raised in their presentation.
Presenter: Professor J. Kēhaulani Kauanui
Date: Friday 21 May, 10am - 12pm (AEST)
June 2021
Masterclass
An exclusive session with the presenter of this month’s Critical Public Conversation series, focused on exploring the key themes and questions raised in their presentation.
Presenter: Associate Professor Sheryl Lightfoot
Date: Wednesday 30 June, 11am - 12pm (AEST)
July 2021
Winter Writing Retreat
The ISRC Writing Retreats provide participants with structure, time, and encouragement to make progress on their writing in the company of other scholars. They are designed to provide you with the physical and mental space to write as part of a community of productive student researchers.
The program will include structured writing time, facilitated workshops, and informal discussions, debriefing sessions and the celebration of progress made.
Dates: Tuesday 22 July - Thursday 24 July
August 2021
Publishing workshop
The publishing workshop is focused on exploring opportunities for disseminating research and building a publication profile in the field of Indigenous-settler relations. Core topics include:
- developing a publication plan
- identifying suitable journals
- understanding the difference between writing for the thesis and writing for journals
- develop an ethical politics of citation in the field of Indigenous-settler relations
Presenter: Dr Ashley Barnwell
Date: Monday 2 August, 10am - 11:30am (AEST)
September 2021
Collaborator workshop
Collaborator workshops are conducted in partnership with a member of the ISRC academic network and provide the opportunity to engage beyond the CPC series and academic development workshops to focus on a key area of Indigenous-settler relations.
Presenter: Professor Karen Farquharson
Date: Tuesday 7 September, 10am - 12pm (AEST)
Masterclass
An exclusive session with the presenters of the joint ISRC/MSEI webinar The Politics of Solidarity and Anti-Racism in Settler Colonial Contexts, focused on exploring the key themes and questions raised in their presentation.
Presenters: Dr Kim Alley and Professor Karen Farquharson
Date: Thursday 30 September, 10am - 11:30am (AEST)
October 2021
Masterclass
An exclusive session with the presenter of this month’s Critical Public Conversation series, focused on exploring the key themes and questions raised in their presentation.
Presenter: Associate Professor Lorenzo Veracini
Date: Wednesday 28th October, 12pm - 1pm (AEDT)
December 2021
Masterclass
An exclusive session with the presenter of November’s Critical Public Conversation series, focused on exploring the key themes and questions raised in their presentation.
Presenter: Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Date: Thursday 2 December, 11am - 12pm (AEDT)
Summer Writing Retreat
The ISRC Writing Retreats provide participants with structure, time, and encouragement to make progress on their writing in the company of other scholars. They are designed to provide you with the physical and mental space to write as part of a community of productive student researchers.
The program will include structured writing time, facilitated workshops, and informal discussions, debriefing sessions and the celebration of progress made.
Dates: Friday 3 December - Wednesday 8 December
The album from the 2021 Writing Retreat is available on the Australian Centre’s Facebook page.
Research Symposium
The ISRC Research Symposium invites participants to showcase and share their excellent and innovative work in the field of Indigenous-settler relations. We invite attendees to share their questions and critiques, experience and knowledge. We seek to create a space to have difficult conversations, which are essential for justice and our collective futures. We will focus on developing learning communities and creating conversations that will generate collaboration amongst scholars in the university setting.
The main aims of the symposium are:
- to bring together graduates working in different disciplines, within the Indigenous-settler relations field
- to allow students to profile their topics and receive support/feedback from panels and peers
- to present successful pathways for organising and producing a thesis in the field
- to identify strategic issues in undertaking higher education in the field
The symposium’s purpose is to foster the exchange of information, help HDR scholars to progress their research themes, provide/receive feedback, and create an engaging space for Indigenous-settler relations research.
Dates: Thursday 9 December - Friday 10 December
The album from the 2021 Symposium is available on the Australian Centre’s Facebook page.
2021 Program of regular events
- 1st Friday of every month: Reading sprints
- 2nd Friday of every month: Shut up and write
- 3rd Friday of every month: Study circle
- 4th Friday of every month: Shut up and write
2023 Cohort
| Name | Title | Institution |
|---|---|---|
Muhammad Zico Albaiquni | Lukisan, The Role of painting in Today's World | University of Melbourne, Victorian College of the Arts |
Kawsar Ali | Digital Settler Colonialism: A Comparative and Transnational Australia-United States Analysis | Macquarie University, Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language, and Literature |
Daphne Arapakis | Mediterranean Diasporas, Indigenous Sovereignties: The Ethnic Dimensions of the Settler Colonial Present | University of Melbourne, Political Science, School of Social and Political Sciences, Faculty of Arts |
Adele Aria | Unsettling and decolonising the dominant paradigm of understanding and defining domestic and family violence (DFV) in Australia: Centring complexity and diversity in coloniality | Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Monash University |
Kylie Belling | Who is Aboriginal Theatre for? The place of audience when decolonising Aboriginal Theatre | University of Melbourne, Victorian College of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music |
Todd Bennett | Jimmy Governor - The Last Outlaw | University of Melbourne, Victorian College of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music |
Alex Bowen | Communication about criminal law and justice with NT Aboriginal defendants | University of Melbourne, School of Languages and Linguistics |
Anna Cameron | The harms of Child Protection against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and their children | School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University |
Jaqueline Cammell | The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in child protection systems: a comparative study of approaches in Australia and Canada | School of Social and Political Sciences, the University of Melbourne |
Sumedha Choudhury | The State, Statelessness and International Law: A Third World Perspective | University of Melbourne, Melbourne Law School |
Carol-Lynne Christophersen | An investigation of a collection and repatriation of ancestral human remains in the Northern Territory: 1965 – the present | University of Melbourne, Indigenous Studies (School of Culture and Communications), Faculty of Arts |
Angela Conquet | What's in a name? Making dance present | University of Melbourne, Faculty of Arts, School of Culture and Communication, Dept. English and Theatre Studies |
Emily Cox | Decolonising contemporary design practice: Understanding the power dynamics in relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and Settler Australians in the built environment | School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, the University of Melbourne |
Tim Delany | Imagining schools without policy: a critical analysis of policy implementation in Australian government schools | University of Melbourne, Melbourne Graduate School of Education |
Claire Dixon | Integrating Indigenous knowledges and perspectives into engineering education | University of Melbourne, Department of Infrastructure Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology |
Alexandra Dixon | Decolonising water histories for Great Artesian Basin Springs | Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University |
Anna Dunn | Navigating rock relations in protected area management | Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, the University of Sydney |
Christian Eva | Making Indigenous Friendly Businesses | Australian National University, Centre for Social Research and Methods |
Annabell Fender | Thinking with Bees in the Patchy Anthropocene: Multispecies Kinship in Histories and Futures | University of Potsdam (home institution), University of Melbourne (host institution) |
Michelle Gissara | First Nations experiences of image-based sexual abuse: Documenting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and LGBTQIA+ persons encounters of image-based sexual abuse in Victoria | RMIT University, Global, Urban & Social Studies |
Samara Hand | Beyond Educational Genocide: The challenge of realising Indigenous Peoples’ right to education in settler colonial states | Faculty of Law and Justice, the University of New South Wales |
Carly Heinrich | Re-imagining fat: disrupting Australian fatphobia with First Nations’ oral histories of relations | Justice and Society, the University of South Australia |
Kate Hill | Digging: handling the layers of material politics through working with local clay soils | Monash University, Fine Art, MADA |
Leeza Holguin | A Childhood of My Own: Decolonizing Indigenous Education Policies in Pursuit of a Self-Determined Utopia | University of Melbourne, School of Social and Political Science and Melbourne Graduate School of Education |
Renae Isaacs-Guthridge | Aboriginal student transition to university - a strengths-based approach | Edith Cowan University - School of Education |
Kate Jama | Listening to the Indian Ocean: Ways of Knowing Through Practices and Technologies of Jurisdiction | University of Melbourne, Melbourne Law School |
Constanza Jara | A participatory design framework for sacred landscapes in indigenous contexts: two case studies in the South Pacific Basin | University of Melbourne, Melbourne School of Design |
Alice Jefimenko | A reflexive methodology for writing collaborative Indigenous histories | University of Melbourne, Culture and Communication, Indigenous Studies, Arts |
Tammi Jonas | Towards an Agroecological Transition: the biodiverse practices and decolonial politics of Australia’s new peasants | University of Western Australia, School of Social Sciences, Anthropology |
Mireille Kayeye | Empowerment of Women Seeking Asylum | University of Melbourne, School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Faculty of Science |
Therese Keogh | Narrating Excessive Grounds: Navigating the Spoils of Extraction through Writing | University of Melbourne, Victorian College of the Arts |
Andoni Laguna-Alberdi | Literacy and voice: Impact of the ‘Yes, I Can!’ campaign on political participation, community engagement and governance in Australian First Nations communities. | University of Melbourne, Spanish and Latin American Studies |
Susannah Langley | Drawn to Sound: Explores linkages between drawing and Sound in a virtual environment, through practice | University of Melbourne, Production, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music |
Sophia Mann | Indigenous Expressions of Femininity Online | Macquarie University, Faculty of Arts, Indigenous Department |
Finn Manu Bellingham | Ngā Ao Whakawhanaunga: Beyond Anatopism | The University of Auckland, Faculty of Arts, School of Social Sciences, Department of Sociology |
Erin Matthews | Cultural Heritage, Indigenous Knowledge and Community-Based Archiving; how they shape identity and cultural continuity in our digital world | University of Melbourne, Faculty of Arts, School of Culture and Communication, Indigenous Studies Unit |
Christine McFetridge | An Inconvenient Curve: Unlearning Settler Colonial Representations of the Birrarung | RMIT University, College of Design and Social Context, School of Art, Photography |
James Mitchelhill | The Pavilion School: A critical evaluation of a Flexible Learning Option and the Systems which Constrain It | La Trobe University, School of Education |
Katherine Newman | Settler Colonial Security: White Supremacist Violence in a Settler Colonial Context | UNSW, Arts Design and Architecture, Social Science |
Kenzee Patterson | Settler-colonial belonging: Cycles of material and bodily displacement in Australia, Europe and the Great Ocean | Monash University, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, Department of Fine Art |
Rachelle Pedersen | Understanding and Unpacking Pākehā Privilege in Support of Treaty-based Social Justice | University of Auckland, Faculty of Science, School of Psychology |
Chris Pickering | Folio of Compositions | University of Melbourne, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, Melbourne Conservatorium, Composition Department |
Rees Quilford | Memoryscoping the Bunurong Coast: Speculating on the intimate histories of place | RMIT University, School of Media and Communication |
Alan Radford | Beyond the white veil | Indigenous Health Equity Unit, the University of Melbourne |
Rebecca Roberts | Material Encounters in Built Heritage Conservation: Traditional craftsmanship as spatiotemporal performance in theatres of memory | University of Melbourne, Architecture, Building and Planning |
Brigitte Rogan | Exploring difficult knowledge in teacher practice with incarcerated young people | Flinders University of South Australia, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences - Language, literature, culture and society |
Rebecca (Helen) Ryall | Nightcap knowing/s | School of Architecture and Built Environment, Deakin University |
Catherine Ryan | Making it up as we go: Improvisational theatre practices and child/adult relationships | University of Melbourne, Melbourne Graduate School of Education |
Alana Scully | Structures of Desire: Crisis and Australia's national fantasy | The University of Melbourne, Arts, School of Culture and Communication |
Cassandra Seery | Victoria's Invisible Histories: The ongoing fight for Aboriginal Self-Determination and the (ab)use of executive (colonial) power | University of Melbourne, Melbourne Law School |
Oliver Shaw | The Blue House: Slow Methods for Intuitive Writing Practice | RMIT University, Non-Fiction Lab |
(Mary) Ann Slater | Another way to know and do: Embedding First People perspectives into early childhood practice | Monash University |
Shellie Smith | Katowa Awabakalkoba Pari (With Awabakal Country) Exploring an Indigenous approach to contemporary design practice | University of Newcastle: College of Engineering, Science and Environment: School of Architecture and Built Environment: Architecture |
Callum Stewart | Nation, Race, and Age: the temporalities of White national fantasies | Department of Political Sciences, School of Social and Political Sciences, Faculty of Arts, the University of Melbourne |
Lillian Tait | Wekwek en wokwok mijimit bla maindim dismob stori blanga Yurrapanji | Working and walking together to look after these stories about Urapunga | Macquarie University, Discipline of Geography and Planning, School of Social Sciences |
Linda Tegg | Being out of Place | University of Melbourne, Victorian College of the Arts, School of Art |
Amanda Wells | Riverland Citrus: A Coloniser Industry on Meru Country, 1948-1970 | University of Newcastle, History Department, School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences |
Alice Wighton | Mobilising strategies for decolonial futures: The effects of change discourse in higher education | Melbourne Graduate School of Education, the University of Melbourne |
Justin Wilkey | Challenging the assimilative history and practices of boarding school education for Indigenous students: An exploration into what the voices of Indigenous students can teach us about their lived experiences of boarding school in South Australia | University of Melbourne, Melbourne Graduate School of Education |
Rasheeda Wilson | The Tale of Munya and The Djinni Prince: Exploring Muslim-Australian YA writing practice through Islamic cosmology | RMIT University, School of Media and Communication, College of Design and Social Context |
Megan Wood | Place-informed literacy in the Murrinhpatha language maintenance classroom | School of Languages, Literature and Linguistics, the Australian National University |
2022 Cohort
| Name | Title | Institution |
|---|---|---|
Kawsar Ali | Digital Settler Colonialism: A Comparative and Transnational Australia-United States Analysis | Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language, and Literature, Macquarie University |
Adele Aria | Unsettling and decolonising the dominant paradigm of understanding and defining domestic and family violence (DFV) in Australia: Centring complexity and diversity in coloniality | Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Monash University |
Scheherazade Bloul | Digital contestations and solidarity: post-colonial subjectivities in Morocco and in the diaspora | Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University |
Alex Bowen | Communication about criminal law and justice with NT Aboriginal defendants | School of Languages and Linguistics, the University of Melbourne |
Theodore Butcher-Cornet | The potential of treaty-making in re-defining Indigenous-settler relations: towards Indigenous emancipation From the Australian settler colonial order? | School of Law, University of Queensland |
Anna Cameron | The harms of Child Protection against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and their children | School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University |
Jaqueline Cammell | The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in child protection systems: a comparative study of approaches in Australia and Canada | School of Social and Political Sciences, the University of Melbourne |
Ai Ming Chow | Reimagining the Indigenous Art Market: Site of Decolonisation and Reassertion of Indigenous Cultures | Department of Management & Marketing, Faculty of Business and Economics, the University of Melbourne |
Jessica Clark | Who’s Afraid of Aboriginal Art? | School of Fine Arts and Music, the University of Melbourne |
Andrea Clarke | Meanings given to diversity: Implications for Indigenous women as Higher Degree Research (HDR) students | Melbourne Graduate School of Education, the University of Melbourne |
Emily Cox | Decolonising contemporary design practice: Understanding the power dynamics in relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and Settler Australians in the built environment | School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, the University of Melbourne |
Emily Dawson | Aboriginal Advocacy, Resistance and Resilience in Australian Education Systems | Melbourne Graduate School of Education, the University of Melbourne |
Jean Dinco | Framing the Rohingya Crisis: An examination of how government discourse gets replicated in online public opinion | Institute of Cyber Security, UNSW Canberra |
Claire Dixon | Integrating Indigenous knowledges and perspectives into engineering education | Department of Infrastructure Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, the University of Melbourne |
Mandy Downing | Subject and Object: Restructuring relationships in the ethics of research involving Indigenous peoples in Australia | School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts, the University of Melbourne |
Anna Dunn | Navigating rock relations in protected area management | Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, the University of Sydney |
Anaïs Duong-Pedica | The Politics of Mixed-Race Identity and Decolonization in Kanaky-New Caledonia | Gender Studies and Minority Research profile, Faculty of Arts, Psychology and Theology, Åbo Akademi University |
Catherine Gay | All life and usefulness: Girls in nineteenth-century Victoria | School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, the University of Melbourne |
Samara Hand | Beyond Educational Genocide: The challenge of realising Indigenous Peoples’ right to education in settler colonial states | Faculty of Law and Justice, the University of New South Wales |
Ben Harrap | The health of Aboriginal children and its intersection with the child protection system in Western Australia | Indigenous Epidemiology and Health Unit, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, Medicine Dentistry and Health Sciences, the University of Melbourne |
Peter Hayes | Operationalising co-design and a mixed-method longitudinal cohort study in Indigenous program evaluation: Opportunities and lessons from the Lower Gulf region? | School of Demography, the Australian National University |
Carly Heinrich | Re-imagining fat: disrupting Australian fatphobia with First Nations’ oral histories of relations | Justice and Society, the University of South Australia |
Pip Henderson | Whiteness in education and schools: learning from lived experiences of young Aboriginal students and their families to understand manifestations of whiteness in primary schools | Southgate Institute for Health, Society and Equity, Flinders University |
Suzannah Henty | Friendship, Global Alliances and Decoloniality in Palestine and Australia: A study on contemporary anti-colonial video art | Department of Art History, School of Culture and Communications, Faculty of Arts, the University of Melbourne |
Leeza Holguin | A Childhood of My Own: Decolonizing Indigenous Education Policies in Pursuit of a Self-Determined Utopia | School of Social and Political Science and Melbourne Graduate School of Education, the University of Melbourne |
Rebecca Howe | Governing gender through governing access to gender-affirming medical technologies: A critical comparative analysis of trans health policy | Department of Social Work, School of Education and Social Work, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, the University of Sydney |
Holly Ireland | The Racial Logics of Molwa Law: Yorta Yorta v The State of Victoria | School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University |
Mireille Kayeye | Empowerment of Women Seeking Asylum | School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Faculty of Science, the University of Melbourne |
Therese Keogh | Narrating Excessive Grounds: Navigating the Spoils of Extraction through Writing | Victorian College of the Arts, the University of Melbourne |
Vicki Kerrigan | Frontier healthcare: developing culturally safe communication at Royal Darwin Hospital | Menzies School of Health Research, Charles Darwin University |
Emmeline Kildea | The Australian Ruin: narratives and parameters of Australian settler colonialism | School of Media and Communication, College of Design and Social Context, RMIT University |
Ben Latham | Indigitized: Digital Transmissions of Indigenous Eco-Knowledge | Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, King's College London |
Tamara Lipscombe | Deconstructing Sociocultural Tensions associated with ‘Australia Day’ | School of Population Health, Curtin University |
Kajsa Lundberg | Ordinary Harms and Extraordinary Crises: Environmental Harm and Fire on the Edges of the City | Criminology, School of Social and Political Sciences, Faculty of Arts, the University of Melbourne |
Shelly McGrath | How do systemic criminalisation processes deployed by settler-colonial states impact on the socio-political delegitimisation of First Nations peoples, and how are Indigenous resurgences countering these praxes? | Wollotuka Institute of Indigenous Education and Research, the University of Newcastle |
Katy McKeown | Cleamnhas; The Affinity Project | School of Fine Arts and Music, the University of Melbourne |
Martin McKowen | Community Development Principles and Indigenous Self-Determination | Justice and Society, the University of South Australia |
Kathy Min | The Unheard: A Comparison of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots and the 2004 Redfern Riots | School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, the University of Melbourne |
Alan Radford | Beyond the white veil | Indigenous Health Equity Unit, the University of Melbourne |
Pekeri Ruska | ‘Weapons of Warriors: Strategies of resistance in exercising Quandamooka Sovereignty’ | School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University |
Gabrielle Rutter | Boats, Bush Remedies and Brands: Settler (Mis)use of Bush Medicine in Australia, 1788-1916 | School of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University |
Susan Ryan | Deconstructing the colonial view of Wadawurrung Country: knowledge drawn from John Wedge’s Field Books of 1835-1836 | School of Architecture and Built Environment, Deakin University |
Oliver Shaw | The Blue House: Slow Methods for Intuitive Writing Practice | Non-Fiction Lab, RMIT University |
Callum Stewart | Nation, Race, and Age: the temporalities of White national fantasies | Department of Political Sciences, School of Social and Political Sciences, Faculty of Arts, the University of Melbourne |
Sarah Stoller | Perceiving values in Indigenous policy collaboration | School of Social and Political Sciences, Faculty of Arts, the University of Melbourne |
Lillian Tait | Wekwek en wokwok mijimit bla maindim dismob stori blanga Yurrapanji | Working and walking together to look after these stories about Urapunga | Discipline of Geography and Planning, School of Social Sciences, Macquarie University |
Franka Vaughan | Who is a Liberian anyway? The claim for formalised identity by diasporic Liberians | School of Social and Political Science, Faculty of Arts, the University of Melbourne |
Ripeka Walker | Tāringa Kōhatu: Activation of the Civic Realm through Cultural Protocol | Architecture, Urban Design, Indigenous Practice, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, the University of Melbourne |
Alice Wighton | Mobilising strategies for decolonial futures: The effects of change discourse in higher education | Melbourne Graduate School of Education, the University of Melbourne |
Bianca Williams | Colonial politics: Why the imagined victim of coercive control will never be an Indigenous woman | School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University |
Rasheeda Wilson | The Tale of Munya and The Djinni Prince: Exploring Muslim-Australian YA writing practice through Islamic cosmology | School of Media and Communication, College of Design and Social Context, RMIT University |
Megan Wood | Place-informed literacy in the Murrinhpatha language maintenance classroom | School of Languages, Literature and Linguistics, the Australian National University |
2021 Cohort
| Name | Title | Institution |
|---|---|---|
Daphne Arapakis | The reconfigured χωριό’: Theorising Greek Australian responsibility in Indigenous-settler relations | School of Social and Political Sciences, the University of Melbourne |
Jocelyn Bardot | Mapping Dja Dja Wurrung Obejcts Through Global Museum Networks: Historiographies, inventories and provenances | School of Culture and Communication, the University of Melbourne |
Alex Bowen | Communication about criminal law and justice with NT Aboriginal defendants | School of Languages and Linguistics, the University of Melbourne |
Nina Cass | Inside Australian universities: The participation of Indigenous peoples in higher education | The Faculty of Education, the University of Cambridge |
Jessica Clark | Who’s Afraid of Aboriginal Art? | School of Fine Arts and Music, the University of Melbourne |
Emily Cox | Decolonising contemporary design practice: Understanding the power dynamics in relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and Settler Australians in the built environment | School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, the University of Melbourne |
Emily Dawson | Aboriginal Advocacy, Resistance and Resilience in Australian Education Systems | Melbourne Graduate School of Education, the University of Melbourne |
Anna Dunn | Navigating rock relations in protected area management | Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, the University of Sydney |
Simon Farley | ‘Alien Hordes’: A cultural history of biological invasions in Australia | School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, the University of Melbourne |
Catherine Gay | All life and usefulness: Girls in nineteenth-century Victoria | School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, the University of Melbourne |
Anastasia Gramatakos | More than the who, what and where: Investigating Urban Food Forestry holistically through a relational and temporal SES lens | School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, the University of Melbourne |
Pip Henderson | Whiteness in education and schools: learning from lived experiences of young Aboriginal students and their families to understand manifestations of whiteness in primary schools | Southgate Institute for Health, Society and Equity, Flinders University |
Natalie Ironfield | The (im)possibilities of criminal legal system reform: An Indigenous critique of the Australian colonial carceral state | School of Social and Political Sciences, the University of Melbourne |
Vicki Kerrigan | Frontier healthcare: developing culturally safe communication at Royal Darwin Hospital | Menzies School of Health Research, Charles Darwin University |
Priya Kunjan | The policing and representations of Indigenous peoples' political claims made in the form of public protest | School of Social and Political Sciences, the University of Melbourne |
Shane Lestideau | Developing Historically Informed Performance Practices of Scottish-Australian Music Manuscripts | School of Fine Arts and Music, the University of Melbourne |
Shelly McGrath | How do systemic criminalisation processes deployed by settler-colonial states impact on the socio-political delegitimisation of First Nations peoples, and how are Indigenous resurgences countering these praxes? | Wollotuka Institute of Indigenous Education and Research, the University of Newcastle |
Katy McKeown | Cleamnhas; The Affinity Project | School of Fine Arts and Music, the University of Melbourne |
Martin McKowen | Community Development Principles and Indigenous Self-Determination | Justice & Society, the University of South Australia |
Sumaiya Muyeen | from stigmatic bodies to poetic flesh: Muslim-fem experiments in desire | School of Social and Political Sciences, the University of Melbourne |
Matt Novacevski | Looking Through Layers - Towards Post-colonial Placemaking Evaluation in Australia | School of Architecture, Building and Planning, the University of Melbourne |
Catalina Labra Odde | Mapping Jaara Women’s Knowledge with Historical and Archaeological Data – Narratives of Australian Aboriginal Food and Fire | Department of Archaeology and History and Department of Social Inquiry, La Trobe University |
Stefanie Oliver | From Isolation to Inclusion: Embracing local perspectives in examining the treatment model of care for Aboriginal persons affected by tuberculosis or leprosy in the Kimberley region, North Western Australia | School of Medicine, the University of Notre Dame Australia |
Jason O’Neil | Wiradjuri mayiny on centring First Nations: Redefining self-determination in Australian public policy | Nura Gili Centre for Indigenous Programs, the University of New South Wales |
Michelle O’Toole | Engaging with alterity: non-Māori learners of te reo Māori in Whakatāne, Aotearoa New Zealand | Department of Social Inquiry, La Trobe University |
Péta Phelan | Aboriginal LGBTIQSB+ Social and Emotional Wellbeing: Re-making engagement with us at the centre | School of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, the University of Melbourne |
Caitlyn Pryse | Learners Use YouTube Comments to Disrupt the Universality of Australian School Mathematics | Melbourne Graduate School of Education, the University of Melbourne |
Carol Que | Anticolonial boycott: Infrastructures of refusal, connectivity, and continuity | School of Social and Political Sciences, the University of Melbourne |
Isaac Roberts | Parallel Journeys: Indigenous and Jewish Relationships from 1788 | Department of Indigenous Studies, Macquarie University |
Catherine Ryan | Making it up as we go: Improvisational theatre practices and child/adult relationships | Melbourne Graduate School of Education, the University of Melbourne |
Susan Ryan | Deconstructing the colonial view of Wadawurrung Country: knowledge drawn from John Wedge’s Field Books of 1835-1836 | School of Architecture and Built Environment, Deakin University |
Tasnim Sammak | Tracing 9/11 Muslim political subjectivities and imaginaries in settler colonial Australia | The Faculty of Education, Monash University |
Danish Sheikh | A Jurisprudence of Repair | Melbourne Law School, the University of Melbourne |
William Sheldon | After the Empire - Governance, Planning and Sustainable Indigenous Development in Australia | School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, the University of Melbourne |
Priyanka Shivadas | On Reading the Fourth World: A Trans-Indigenous Study of Indigenous Literatures of Australia and India | School of Humanities and Social Sciences, UNSW Canberra at the Australian Defence Force Academy |
Jarrod Sim | An Ethnography of the Paridrayan Soundscape | School of Archaeology and Anthropology, the Australian National University |
Archie Thomas | Envisioning self-determination: contesting the future in remote Aboriginal bilingual schools | School of International Studies and Education and the Australian Centre for Public History, the University of Technology Sydney |
Austin Tseng | Chinese-Australians and Anti-Blackness: Settler Media Discourses Since Federation | Faculty of Arts and the Asia Institute, the University of Melbourne |
Vanessa Whittington | Moved to care for Country? Visitors, landscape, affect and the role of heritage interpretation | Institute of Culture and Society, Western Sydney University |
Janelle Young | Representations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in Australian social work discourse | School of Social and Political Sciences, the University of Melbourne |
The Program is offered by the Australian Centre and students remain enrolled in their current departments. Eligible students must be undertaking graduate research on a relevant topic. Priority will be given to students who have at least one supervisor based at the University of Melbourne.
Timely completion of the thesis remains the priority, with the Program intended to enhance the experience of advanced research training and aid graduation pathways.
Applications to join the program are called for twice a year, with start year intake applications closing in early February and mid-year entry closing in late June.
Students can join the program at any time during their candidature and remain part of the program until the completion of their studies.
If you are not a current student at the University of Melbourne and would like information about how to apply to become a graduate research candidate at the University, please visit the Information for graduate researchers web page.
2023 applications
Applications for 2023 mid-year entry are now open and close Friday 30 June 2023.
Please note: Priority will be given to students who have at least one supervisor based at the University of Melbourne. Students from other institutions will need a statement of support from their supervisors for their applications to be considered. Eligible students must have commenced a PhD or Masters by Research.
Application process
Applicants are asked to provide the following information via an online form. We strongly recommend that you prepare your answers offline (in Microsoft Word or similar) and save a copy for your own records.
- Name, enrolment and contact information
- Start and expected completion dates
- Current Supervisor/s
- Thesis title (or proposed title)
- A brief description of their topic (up to 100 words)
- An outline of what they are most interested in gaining from the program (up to 100 words)
Please email the Australian Centre if you have any problems with or queries about completing this form.