Alumni in profile
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Doctor of Philosophy 2003
Cultural activist and Deakin alumnus Dr Zohl de Ishtar says that being nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 was recognition for over 20 years spent advocating and promoting human rights issues and social justice for Indigenous Australian and Pacific women and for lesbians internationally.
Zohl is a postdoctoral fellow at the Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Queensland, St Lucia campus. She is one of just six Australian women included in the 1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005 nomination, and one of 36 women to be nominated from the Pacific region.
The 1000 Women nomination category is designed to recognise women around the world who work to further human rights and peace-building or who help to develop education, health, reconciliation and social justice programs for marginalised people.
Zohl is widely published and has written many journal articles and two books, with a third on the way. Her publications include: Pacific women speak out for independence and denuclearisation (1998); and Daughters of the Pacific (1994), which details the struggle of the Pacific nations in their efforts to stop nuclear testing in the region.
While promoting the rights of Indigenous Australian and Pacific women is her primary research interest, Zohl continues to have an active involvement in many other world issues such as campaigning against nuclear weapons and militarism, protecting cultural integrity, eradicating colonialism, promoting the inalienable sovereign rights of all peoples and advocating against cultural ignorance and sexual discrimination.
Born in Adelaide, Zohl has traveled extensively to 27 countries, including a stint at the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp in England during the 1980s, from where she founded the British network Women for a Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific. Zohl was arrested nine times in England during peaceful protests against nuclear weapons!
Zohl returned to Australia in 1989 to administer the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific group in Sydney. She founded the Lesbian Cancer Foundation in 1993 and was the coordinator of the Lesbian Community Cultural Centre from 1996 to 1997.
Zohl studied for her Master of Applied Social Research and Master of Philosophy (Sociology) at Macquarie and Sydney Universities, and chose Deakin to complete her off-campus PhD.
"I chose to study with Deakin due to the reputation it has in supporting off-campus students. Deakin's logistical support for my research whilst I was living in a remote Aboriginal community in Western Australia's Great Sandy Desert was excellent," she said.
"I also chose Deakin because I wanted to work with Associate Professor Renate Klein, who was heading up the women's studies area in the Faculty of Arts at that time," she said.
Zohl was awarded the Isi Liebler Prize in 2003 for her PhD thesis, Holding Yawulyu: white culture and black women's law , contributing to advancing knowledge of racism, prejudice and multiculturalism in Australia.
In order to research her thesis, Zohl spent two years living with female Aboriginal elders in Western Australia. Her thesis has been reworked over the last two years and will soon be released as a book under the same title.
Zohl plans to continue her work at the University of Queensland, striving to achieve a more just and equitable world.
"My employment entails research and publishing within the context of peace and conflict studies and continuing my work with Indigenous Australian and Pacific women. My job gives me the ability to keep doing my research and advocacy work to contribute towards creating a world free of discrimination on any basis," she said.
