Welcome to The DSAA monthly webinar series!
Development is a dynamic space, bringing together research and practice across a range of disciplines. Our webinar series explores this diversity, bringing a new speaker who shares their expertise on a critical theme of interest every month. Each session will explore diverse topics, from building a CV for the international development sector to conducting community-based research and decolonising research practices. Through these interactive webinars, we aim to support HDR and ECR students in expanding their networks, gaining real-world insights, and advancing their academic and professional journeys.
You can replay previous webinars from our YouTube Channel @DSA_Australia
UPCOMING WEBINAR
Gender and Development: Perspectives from Australia and the Pacific – A Conversation
Join our upcoming DSAA webinar, “Gender and Development: Perspectives from Australia and the Pacific – A Conversation”, bringing together Rahkel Mercy, Dr Deborah Cummins, Professor Sharon Bessell and Dr Annabel Dulhunty.
Drawing on insights from Australia, the Pacific, Timor-Leste and Indonesia, this conversation sees editors and authors in discussion about their newly released book ‘Gender and Development: Perspectives from Australia and the Pacific’, reflecting on both the challenges and emerging opportunities shaping the field today.
Rahkel Mercy is a doctoral candidate at the ANU Law School researching how Pacific regional organisations shape international law through relational practice and collaboration. Her chapter in this volume, “Pacific-Grounded Approaches: Adaptive Practices in Gender-Climate Organisations,” draws on desktop mapping across 14 Pacific nations and fieldwork in Fiji to examine how gender-climate civil society organisations develop locally grounded structures that shift decision-making authority to communities rather than merely including them in existing frameworks. Drawing on over 20 years of experience spanning Fiji government and the University of the South Pacific, her research sits at the intersection of Pacific institutional governance, policy development, and gender and climate research — bringing both scholarly and practitioner depth to questions of how Pacific organisations exercise influence from within.
Dr. Deborah Cummins is the Founder and Executive Director of Bridging Peoples, and is Industry Representative and member of the Executive Committee for the Development Studies Association of Australia (DSAA). Dr. Cummins is a specialist in community engagement, ground-up research and development in complex, postcolonial environments. She has worked as technical specialist, researcher and trainer for various multilateral agencies, and international and local NGOs since 2005, and has published widely on issues of local-level governance and political economy, civic engagement, women’s political participation, women’s access to justice, and community development & engagement. She brings together her community governance focus and technical legal skills to assist and mentor organizations in developing networks of community & civic engagement that are effective, engaged and inclusive.
Sharon Bessell is Professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Canberra. She is the Director of the Children’s Policy Centre and co-host of Policy Forum Pod. Sharon’s research focuses on the gendered and generational nature of poverty. She previously co-led the Individual Deprivation Measure project, which focused on gender sensitive measurement of poverty. She is currently leading More for Children, a program of transformative research that aims to understand and respond to children’s experiences of poverty. Sharon is internationally recognised as an award-winning leader in rights-based research methodologies and ethics.
Dr Annabel Dulhunty is a Senior Lecturer at the Crawford School of Public Policy and is Deputy Director of the South Asian Research Institute at the Australian National University. Annabel is also an Executive Committee Member of the Development Studies Association of Australia. Annabel draws on her extensive experience managing aid projects for over 15 years in the Pacific, Latin America, Africa and South Asia to guide her research on global gender equality, human rights and social justice.
This webinar will create a valuable space for critical dialogue between authors and the broader community, highlighting diverse perspectives and grounded experiences across different regional contexts, with opportunities for questions and discussion.
For more information, you can check our website or subscribe to our YouTube Channel [https://www.youtube.com/@DSA_Australia]
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This initiative aligns with the DSAA’s core objectives of engagement, research, and teaching, strongly emphasizing decolonizing research and connecting with Majority-World scholars.