Dr Siobhan McDonnell
Areas of expertise
- Pacific Cultural Studies 200210
- Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Law 180101
- Culture, Gender, Sexuality 200205
- Social And Cultural Anthropology 160104
- Human Rights Law 180114
- Property Law (Excl. Intellectual Property Law) 180124
- Environmental And Natural Resources Law 180111
Research interests
Siobhan scholarly interests include: Indigenous people and land; Property rights issues; Social justice issues for Indigenous people; Gender and natural resource management; Legal Anthropology; Customary law and legal pluralism; Pacific studies; Indigenous History; Urbanisation; Cultural Economics; Cultural heritage management; Disaster recovery and climate change.
Biography
Dr. Siobhan McDonnell is a lawyer, economist and an anthropologist with an interest in applied research. She is a Research Fellow at the National Centre of Indigenous Studies and a Lecturer in Pacific Studies in the College of Asia and the Pacific.
She has previously worked as a legal and policy advisor at the Central Land Council and at Reconciliation Australia. She began her research career at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research. She has served two terms as the Legal Advisor to Vanuatu’s Minister for Lands, Ralph Regenvanu.
In 2014 Siobhan was the principal drafter of a new set of land laws in Vanuatu, as well as amendments to the Constitution of the Republic of Vanuatu. In 2015 she worked with the Solomon Islands Government to develop a pathway for land reform discussions.
In 2015-2016 Siobhan worked as a Research Fellow in Professor Margaret Jolly’s ARC Laureate project ‘Engendering Persons, Transforming Things: Christianities, Commodities and Individualism in Oceania’.
Siobhan currently convenes and lectures in a number of courses at the Australian National University and she is regularly engaged as a consultant by both government agencies and non-government organisations. In 2017 she was awarded the Gender Institute prize for the PhD dissertation that most contributed to the advancement of gender studies.
Researcher's projects
Dr Siobhan Mcdonnell is a Legal Anthropologist with twenty years experience working on legal and policy issues with Indigenous people in Australia and Melanesia.
She completed her PhD in Legal Anthropology on Indigenous land rights titled: ‘My Land My Life: Property, Power and Identity in Land Transformations in Vanuatu’.
Siobhan is currently working on projects in Indigenous Australia and the Pacific including:
- an evaluation of family dispute resolution processes amongst Indigenous and English as a second language (CALD) communities across Australia;
- constitutional law and rights for Indigenous Australians;
- the history of discrimination faced by Indigenous Australians under various Protection Acts;
- how 'deficit discourse' frames engagement with Indigenous Australians;
- climate change and gender in the Pacific;
- land reform and indigneous land rights in the Pacific;
- disaster managment in the Pacific; and,
- how concepts of 'paradise' frame foreign engagement in the Pacific.
Current student projects
- Meabh Cryan. Concepts of Land and Life: Contested Land Access in Timor-Leste (PhD Thesis).
- Athena Rogers. The challenges and opportunities of regulating traditional justice practices in Timor-Leste (Masters Thesis).
Publications
- Dodson, M & McDonnell, S 2017, 'Indigenous People as linked to Place, the Race power in the Tasmanian Dam Case', in Michael Coper; Heather Roberts; James Stellios (ed.), The Tasmanian Dam Case 30 Years On: An Enduring Legacy, The Federation Press, Australia NSW.
- McDonnell, S 2017, 'Urban Land Grabbing by Political Elites: Exploring the Political Economy of Land and the Challenges of Regulations', in Siobhan McDonnell, Matthew G. Allen, Colin Filer (ed.), Kastom, Property and Ideology: Land Transformations in Melanesia, ANU ePress, Canberra, pp. 283-304.
- McDonnell, S, Allen, M & Filer, C (ed.) 2017, Kastom, Property and Ideology: Land Transformations in Melanesia, ANU Press, Canberra.
- Filer, C, McDonnell, S & Allen, M 2017, 'Powers of Exclusion in Melanesia', in Siobhan McDonnell, Matthew G. Allen, Colin Filer (ed.), Kastom, Property and Ideology: Land Transformations in Melanesia, ANU Press, Canberra, pp. 1-56.
- McDonnell, S 2017, 'Land issues in Vanuatu'.
- McDonnell, S 2016, 'Seminar - Why do Land Reform? Challenging Urban Land Grabbing by Political Elites'.
- McDonnell, S 2017, 'Presentation - Exploring the Politics of land in Vanuatu - 11 APR 2017'.
- Dodson, M & McDonnell, S 2016, Why did they serve? Indigenous military service in the First and Second World Wars, pp. 12-18pp.
- McDonnell, S 2015, ''The Land Will Eat You': Land and Sorcery in North Efate, Vanuatu', in Miranda Forsyth and Richard Eves (ed.), Talking it Through. Responses to Sorcery and Witchcraft Beliefs and Practices in Melanesia, ANU Press, Canberra, pp. 137-160.
- McDonnell, S 2015, Vanuatu embraces landmark reforms, pp. 1-3.
- McDonnell, S 2015, Dirty Politics in Vanuatu, pp. Online.
- McDonnell, S. 2015, Building a Pathway for successful land reform in the Solomon Islands.
- McDonnell, S 2015, 100 days since Cyclone Pam, people across Vanuatu pause to reflect on loss and resilience, The Conversation. pp. 1-4.
- McDonnell, S 2014, 'Tax Havens and Sovereignty in the Pacific Islands by Anthony B Van Fossen (review)', The Contemporary Pacific, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 563-566.
- Allen, M, McDonnell, S & Filer, C 2014, 'PRESENTATION - For Sale: Analysis of exclusion of people from land in Melanesia and directions forward | 24-25 APR 2014'.
- Allen, M, McDonnell, S & Filer, C 2014, For Sale: Analysis of exclusion of people from land in Melanesia and directions forward.
- McDonnell, S 2013, 'Exploring the Cultural Power of Land Law in Vanuatu: Law as a Performance that Creates Meaning and Identities', Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, vol. Online, no. 33, pp. 1-15.
- Altman, J, McDonnell, S & Ward, S 2002, 'A review of the literature', in Jon Altman and Sally Ward (ed.), Competition and Consumer Issues for Indigenous Australians, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Canberra, pp. 6-24.
- McDonnell, S & Martin, D 2002, 'Indigenous community stores in the frontier economy', in Jon Altman and Sally Ward (ed.), Competition and Consumer Issues for Indigenous Australians, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Canberra, pp. 25-63.
- McDonnell, S & Martin, D 2002, 'Possible breaches of the TPA', in Jon Altman and Sally Ward (ed.), Competition and Consumer Issues for Indigenous Australians, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Canberra, pp. 152-155.
- McDonnell, S 2001, 'Giving credit where its due: The operation of micro-credit models in an Indigenous Australian context', Indigenous Law Bulletin, vol. 5, no. 12, pp. 6-9.
Projects and Grants
Grants information is drawn from ARIES. To add or update Projects or Grants information please contact your College Research Office.
- Land in Solomon Islands: Pathways to Reform (Primary Investigator)
