Contacts
Siobhan is a highly skilled engaged legal anthropologist who has over twenty years of experience working with Indigenous people in Australia and the Pacific on land, resource management, environment and development issues. Her commitment to the practice of engaged anthropology means that she produces research that contributes to high-impact policy and legal outcomes. She has contributed both research and policy outcomes in the following areas: land reform, gender and natural resource managment, climate change, disaster management, legal pluralism and the operation of customary institutions.
She is currently engaged in three major reserach projects: (1) issues related to gender and climate change in Oceania; (2) ethnographies of 'natural' disaster and particularly the concepts of 'vulnerability' and 'resilience; and, (3) how to adapt the family law system to better meet the needs of Indigenous, refugee and migrant families.
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).
Research interests
Siobhan scholarly interests include: Indigenous people and land; Indigenous people, gender and natural resource management; Legal and Environmental Anthropology; Political ecology; Customary law and legal pluralism; Pacific studies; Urbanisation; Cultural heritage management; Disaster management; Climate change; Indigenous studies and decolonisation
Groups
- Researcher, Biodiversity
- Researcher, Climate economics and policy
- Researcher, Indigenous peoples, cultures and knowledges
- Researcher, Water and flooding
- Researcher, Adaptation, livelihoods and development in Asia and the Pacific
- Researcher, Risk, vulnerability and resilience
- 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.
- Maeve Powell. Indigenous Wellbeing in Urban Spaces: expressing voice through walking and photography in Canberra (PhD Thesis, Primary Supervisor).
- Meabh Cryan. Concepts of Land and Life: Contested Land Access in Timor-Leste (PhD Thesis, Primary co-supervisor).
- Ed Wensing. Decolonising Property: How Indigenous and Settler systems of land ownerhsip, use and tenure can coexist in parity (PhD Thesis, Panel Chair).
- Evie Rose. Undervalued, Not Underwater: A Talanoa on Climate Change in Oceania (Honours Thesis, Primary supervisor).