Research in the Department of Social Inquiry

Our researchers explore major cultural and social shifts in Australia and abroad by asking questions about our institutions and societies, cultural and social practices, and their meanings in different contexts and over time. Projects explore new technologies, public inquiries, and modern forms of sorcery and witchcraft.

Key research questions include:

• What does good research with Indigenous peoples look like and how is it best achieved?
• How do new technologies shape our everyday lives?
• How do public inquiries contribute to social change?
• What is meaningful work?
• What do modern forms of sorcery look like and how do governments respond to them?
• How does charity, philanthropy, and crowdfunding shape who we see as ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’?

Our researchers explore how we shape our environments and our environments shape us. Projects investigate climate adaptation and food security, children’s access to the cities in which they live, Indigenous mobilities, religious tourism, the trade unions that shape mining activity in Africa, and precarious work in food supply chains in Australia and Asia.

Key research questions include:

• How do farming practices impact the environment and food security?
• What are the impacts of colonisation upon Indigenous peoples of Australia?
• In what ways is working in food supply chains in Australia and Asia precarious, and how can it be improved?
• How do Global South economies relate to moral norms and affective relationships?
• How do children’s everyday mobilities affect the environment?
• What are the environmental impacts of religious and spiritual tourism?
• What does unionism look like in a development context?

Our researchers examine the complex social and cultural dimensions of health and wellbeing. Projects include maternal health in Indigenous communities, transnational aged care, health inequalities in Pacific Island nations, access to reproductive health care, abortion stigma, human-animal relationships, medical tourism and bibliotherapy.

Key research questions include:

• How are health and wellbeing understood by individuals, governments and practitioners?
• What social factors and inequalities shape everyday experiences of health, and responses to poor health and wellbeing, in Australia and the Pacific region?
• How are healthcare access, food inequality and poverty related?
• How do healthcare and other practitioners, policymakers, patients and communities make sense of emerging health conditions?
• How are mental health conditions understood and treated?

Our researchers apply a critical lens to the experiences and governance of migrants in Australia. Projects include migrant workers in regional and rural Australia, forced displacement and resettlement, irregular migration, forms of population movement and border controls that shape the lives of Indigenous Australians, and transnational migrants in Australia and abroad.

Key research questions include:

• How do people with migration backgrounds experience life, work and family in different settings, including regional towns or Melbourne’s suburbs?
• What social, cultural and political factors shape the lives of resettled refugees in Australia and what would address barriers to their wellbeing?
• How do governments, businesses and communities affect migrants’ experiences of employment and life overall?
• How does racism affect the lives of Indigenous Australians, migrants and their descendants, and how can it be addressed?

Our researchers conduct critical socio-legal research on the justice system in Australia and internationally. Projects focus on gender-based violence, reproductive justice, homelessness, courtroom architecture, the remand-system, racism and anti-queer violence, and comparisons of constitutionalism and the rule of law.

Key research questions include:

• Why and how do gender, sexuality and race matter for accessing justice?
• Which alternatives to policing and punishment could better respond to social problems?
• How can equal access to reproductive justice be achieved?
• How have incarceration and border securitisation regimes been resisted?
• How can gender-based violence be addressed?
• How does courthouse architecture influence jury decision-making?
• What is the relationship between judicial politics and the rule of law and the state of democracy in different countries?