Dr Siobhan McDonnell
Research interests
Siobhan scholarly interests include: Indigenous people and land; Indigenous people, gender and natural resource management; Legal and Environmental Anthropology; Polictical ecology; Customary law and legal pluralism; Pacific studies; Urbanisation; Cultural heritage management; Disaster management; Climate change; Indigenous studies and decolonisation.
Biography
Siobhan McDonnell is a high impact academic who produces research work that informs public policy outcomes in Indigenous Australia and the Pacific. Dr McDonnell is a lawyer/economist/amthropologist with a PhD in Legal Anthropology. She is currently employed as a Research Fellow at the National Centre of Indigenous Studies and at the College of Asia and the Pacific.
Career Highlights:
Chief Investigator on a project looking at mediation in the context of family violence in Indigenous and refugee families (2017-2018); Researcher on an ARC Discovery Project on Climate Change and Gender in the Pacific (2018); Awarded the Australian Anthropology prize for the best thesis in Anthropology in Australia (2017); Awarded the Gender Institute prize for the thesis that most contributed to the advancement of gender studies (2017); Chief Investigator on a project for the Solomon Islands Governmnet to develop a land reform pathway (2015); Principal drafter of a new set of land laws in Vanuatu, as well as amendments to the Constitution of the Republic of Vanuatu (2013-14); Legal/policy advisor Central Land Council (2003-2008); Project Manager Reconciliation Australia (2001-2003); Research Officer Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (1999-2003).
Researcher's projects
Dr Siobhan Mcdonnell is currently working on projects in Indigenous Australia and the Pacific including:
- Climate change and gender in the Pacific (focussed on Vanuatu and Fiji);
- Land reform and indigneous land rights in the Pacific and Indigenous Australia;
- Urbanisation, displacement and migration in the context of climate change, disaster and eviction;
- Use of family dispute resolution processes amongst Indigenous, refugee and migrant families who have experienced violence;
- Concepts of 'resilience' and 'vulnerability' in the context of disaster management in the Pacific; and,
- How concepts of 'paradise' frame foreign engagement in the Pacific and are 'repossessed' by Pacific Islanders.
Current student projects
- Maeve Powell. Indigenous Wellbeing in Urban Spaces: expressing voice through walking and photography in Canberra (PhD Thesis).
- Meabh Cryan. Concepts of Land and Life: Contested Land Access in Timor-Leste (PhD Thesis).
- Ed Wensing. Decolonising Property: How Indigenous and Settler systems of land ownerhsip, use and tenure can coexist in parity (PhD Thesis).
- Evie Rose. Undervalued, Not Underwater: A Talanoa on Climate Change in Oceania (Honours Thesis).
Publications
- McDonnell, S 2018, 'Selling Sites of Desire: Paradise in Reality Television, Tourism, and Real Estate Promotion in Vanuatu', The Contemporary Pacific, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 413-436.
- McDonnell, S 2018, 'Cartographies of Power: Book review of Becoming Landowners by Victoria Stead', Postcolonial Studies, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 1-3.
- McDonnell, S & Dodson, M 2018, 'Race, citizenship and military service', in Joan Beaumont and Allison Cadzow (ed.), Serving our country : indigenous Australians, war, defence and citizenship, NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, pp. 23-52.
- Fogarty, W, Bulloch, H & McDonnell, S 2018, Deficit Discourse and Indigenous Health: How narrative framings of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are reproduced in policy. Lowitja Insitute: Melbourne. ISBN: 978-1-921889-54-7.
- 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.
- 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.
- Dodson, M & McDonnell, S 2016, Why did they serve? Facing entrenched discrimination in Australia, why did black diggers still enlist to serve their country?, pp. 10-16pp.
- 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, Australia, pp. 137-160.
- McDonnell, S 2015, Vanuatu embraces landmark reforms, East Asia Forum pp. 1-3.
- McDonnell, S 2015, Dirty Politics in Vanuatu, Fairfax Media 14 October 2015.
- McDonnell, S. 2015, Building a Pathway for successful land reform in the Solomon Islands. A report prepared for the Solomon Islands Government. pp. 1-82.
- 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, 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.
- LACADR Evaluation (Primary Investigator)
- Land in Solomon Islands: Pathways to Reform (Primary Investigator)
