Skip to the content | Change text size

Social Inclusion & Sustainability Research Cluster

Email: arts-scs-research-cluster-L@monash.edu

Bob Birrell
Dharma Arunachalam (Cluster Leader)
Ernest Healy
Gen Heard
Roseanne Misajon
Sharon Pickering
Alan Petersen
Penny Graham

This cluster aims to provide evidence-based theoretical and empirical research on social cohesion and sociocultural sustainability in Australia. Although there is a clear link between social sustainability and environmental and economic sustainability, this link is of secondary focus in this cluster’s activities. Social capital, social inclusion and social inequality are among the key theoretical concepts that inform research in this cluster. This cluster encourages qualitative and quantitative approaches in research and policy, as well as innovative, critically-engaged project management. Our cluster has the added advantage of access to a large collection of customised census, labour-market, migration, survey and administrative data sets, and has the expertise to interpret and develop them.

The areas of research and expertise in our area can be directly related to at least three national research priorities:

The primary research areas for the “Social Inclusion and Sustainability” cluster are:

Members

Dharma Arunachalam: morbidity, mortality and women's health in Australia; quantitative analysis of hysterectomy in Australia; child malnutrition, child and reproductive health in developing countries with a particular focus on India.

Bob Birrell: Bob's research interests range across Australia's past and present evolution as a nation, including the current challenges of globalisation and the integration of Australia's ethnic minorities.

Denise Cuthbert

Penny Graham:  Anthropology of Southeast Asia; ritual, religion and conversion
Asian labour migration; Nationalism, ethnicity and the state; Orality and literacy.

Ernest Healy

Tseen Khoo:  research areas include minority representations in multicultural societies, diasporic Asian cultures, and the politics of ethnic festivals and comparative cultural studies between Australia and Canada, and diasporic Asian studies.

RoseAnne Misajon: the wellbeing of people with disability and chronic illness (particularly in South East Asia and migrant communities), the psychosocial aspects of quality of life and mental health, and the development of quality of life measures.

Alan Petersen: sociology of public health and health promotion; sociology of risk (particularly the media and the communication of risk); the body and society; gender and health (e.g. prostate cancer); the social context and implications of new technologies, particularly biotechnologies and nanotechnologies; the impact of the new genetics on public health and preventive medicine; genetic testing and counselling; biobanks; stem cell research and applications (especially issues of public engagement)

Sharon Pickering: transnational crime, migration, refugees, deaths at the border, gender and crime, counter-terrorism, sex trafficking, policing, state crime, human rights.

Current research on Social Inclusion and Sustainability by cluster staff

Keywords:

social demography, fertility, family formation and change, family/household structure, health and migration movement, census data, primary and secondary survey data, quantitative methods, multilevel models, population projection, simulation techniques, demographic methods, globalisation, integration of Australia's ethnic minorities, Australia's workforce, skilled movement, workforce demand, vocational and technical education sector, population growth, labour market

  • Information for
  • Information about
  • Our specialist areas