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Introduction
Dr. Siobhan McDonnell is a lawyer and an anthropologist with an interest in applied research. Associate Professor in the Crawford School, Australian National University.
Current institution
Publications
Publications (30)
Visual representations and narrative accounts of Pacific landscapes mat- ter. Long-established ideas of the Pacific as paradise are not empty tropes; rather, they are instrumental in the ongoing recolonization of Indigenous landscapes by foreigners. Beginning with the experience of the filming of Survivor: Vanuatu—Islands of Fire in North Efate, lo...
Oceanic people and places are increasingly labelled as either ‘resilient’ or ‘vulnerable’ to disasters and climate change. Resilience is often described in disaster discourse as a strategy designed to overcome vulnerability by helping communities to ‘bounce back’ in the wake of ‘natural’ disasters. Using ethnographic research conducted with Communi...
The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Oceans and the Cryosphere in a Changing Climate suggests sea level rise may be best understood as a slow onset disaster for Pacific Island countries and, in particular, low lying atoll nations. Sea-level rise, coastal flooding and surge inundation is an increasingly press...
Across Oceania land is the mother. At its core, the practice of decolonial research and activism involves a commitment to the principles of Indigenous self-determination and repatriation of Indigenous land. Beginning with our understanding of decolonial practice and the meanings of land in Vanuatu, in this article we explore decolonization as pract...
Increasingly economists are understanding, once again, that economics is about values. Not the traditional values that have shaped many years of Keynesian and monetarist economics debates, although these debates too are important, but the values that we wish to uphold as part of our economic system. This is prompting global debates around the wellb...
This article discusses critical gaps in finance for loss and damage and analyses the decision on funding arrangements for loss and damage made at the Sharm el‐Sheikh climate conference (COP27) in 2022. The article first considers the history of various loss and damage finance proposals, including the loss and damage negotiations in the lead‐up to C...
Throughout Oceania, land is central to identity because it is understood to be spiritually nourishing and sustaining. Land is the mother. Land, and the kinship it nurtures, is the basis for sustaining livelihoods and ways of life. Therefore, Indigenous dispossession from the land has deep and far-reaching consequences. My Land, My Life: Dispossessi...
In April 2020 a Group of Eight Taskforce was convened, consisting of over 100 researchers, to provide independent, research-based recommendations to the Commonwealth Government on a "Roadmap to Recovery" from COVID-19. The report covered issues ranging from pandemic control and relaxation of social distancing measures, to well-being and special con...
This introduction sets out some of the key themes addressed by the
papers in the special issue on ‘Confronting the Naturalness of
Disaster in the Pacific’. Disasters are now widely understood not
as ‘natural’ phenomena but as events or processes that unfold at
the intersection between natural or artificial hazards and human
populations. We review s...
The relationship between customary land tenure and ‘modern’ forms of landed property has been a major political issue in the ‘Spearhead’ states of Melanesia since the late colonial period, and is even more pressing today, as the region is subject to its own version of what is described in the international literature as a new ‘land rush’ or ‘land g...
'Gender and Land' entry. International Encyclopedia of Anthropology.
Our engagement in this space of encounter between Pacific and non- Pacific economic, political, and ideological forces and agendas focuses on the dynamic configurations of possession and repossession in the complex space of negotiation between Indigenous representations of place, for- eign investments in paradise, and the encroachment of global cap...
Review of 'Becoming Landowners' a multi-sited ethnography that offers a comparative account of processes of land transformation in Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea (PNG). Using a range of ethnographic material and informed by human geography, political science and anthropology, the book discusses attachments to land and the agency of local populati...
This paper describes possible steps Solomon Islands could consider in developing a successful approach to land reform. It shows that it is possible to walk the pathway to achieve successful land reform.
There are three reasons why land reform should be an urgent priority in Solomon Islands:
1 Land reform has the potential to create huge benefits in...
- Vanuatu’s economy, environment and society suffers from the degradation of forests and other land.
- Urgent action is required to address the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation and thereby ensure the country‘s development follows a sustainable pathway.
https://www.unique-landuse.de/images/publications/vereinheitlicht/2017-07-18%20Policy%20brief%20Vanuatu%201.pdf
A two-day “publication workshop” was convened by SSGM/ANU and Oxfam Australia as part of the Australian Association for Pacific Studies (AAPS) biennial conference held at Sydney University. The workshop brought together policymakers, academics, NGOs and activists with a shared interest in contemporary land issues in post-colonial Melanesia. It was...
This background paper has been developed to inform and stimulate discussion on some of the issues that will be discussed at the workshop on ‘Improving banking and financial services for Indigenous Australians’. It is not prescriptive, nor does it attempt to cover all the issues involved. A key aim of the briefing paper is not merely to describe cur...
