Dr Maree Pardy

Dr Maree Pardy is a social and cultural anthropologist and is a Lecturer in Community and International Development and International Studies, in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences.

She joined Deakin University in 2016 after 10 years in Gender Studies and Gender and Development at the University of Melbourne.

Maree’s research focuses on gender, culture and global change. She brings her academic training in anthropology, feminist theory and gender studies together with her professional experience. She researches and publishes in the areas of gender and globalisation; gender and cultural diversity; gender and sexuality in cross cultural contexts; gender, sexuality and human rights; gender and feminist theories of global urbanisation; emotion, culture and politics.

Gender and Development
Gender and Globalisation
Human Rights and other rights
Gender in Cross Cultural Perspective
Development Studies
Gender, bodies, emotion
Feminist theory

Subjects and Units Currently Teaching
ADS 704 International and Community Development Theory and Practice A
ADS 711 Non Government Organisations and other Development Actors
AIS 302 Developed and Developing Worlds
ADS 705 International and Community Development Theory and Practice B

Current areas of interest:

Gender, Culture and Globalisation
Culture and Human Rights
International Human Rights campaigns
Ethnographic methods
Urban space, place and diversity
Religion and Public Space

Conference Papers/Presentations

2016

Upagainst togetherness: clashing bodies and crushing feelings in urban diversity, Diverse Urban Cultures in the Anthropocene, Deakin ADI Symposium, June 8-9, 

2015

Culture and Human Rights: Contest, Consonance and Accommodation – invited panel speaker, Global Frictions Seminar Series, RMIT September 

2014

Feeling ‘cosmopolitan’ through Transnational ‘rights’ feminism – invited panel AAS/NZAAS, November 

Feeling Ethical – Imagining Global rights through Local Women, Gender and Culture, AWGSA (Australian Women and Gender Studies Association) Conference, June

2013

“Under Western Eyes again?” Gender, Rights and Culture problems, Contemporary Cultures and Societies Seminar Series, University of Melbourne, October 

Culture and Rights Imaginaries – too little and too much, Imagining Muslim Women Symposium, Melbourne Law School, September 2013

Is multiculturalism good for women? Asking the wrong questions VICMUN, University of Melbourne, July 

2012

Gender, religion and the culture clash: Human rights as racism? Culture and Rights Symposium, Anthropology, Sydney University, July 2012

What is Gender? The Gender Agenda, Australia’s Role in the World, University of Melbourne, August 

2010

Concrete Emotions – understanding diversity and urban renewal through emotion. (Public Seminar as Part of Visiting Professorship), Monash Sunway University, November 28, 

2009

Troubling Ideas about community – who’s in and who’s out? 6th Australian Housing Conference, Melbourne, November

We will give them the place they want! Ethnography, cultural diversity and place, to VicUrban Uni (Annual Staff Inservice) – Melbourne Convention Centre, October 

2007

Migration, community and kinship - drug use and Vietnamese-Australian families, Family, Alcohol and Drug Network, National Conference, Melbourne, June

Anxious Nationalism and fragile identities – reflections on cultural identity in Australia, Invited paper at “Talk Blak2: The politics of Australian identity: recent stories” - City of Melbourne, Melbourne Conversations, June 

2006

Otherness, masculinity and the nation – Cronulla, frenzy and anthropology – Invited Paper, Debates in Contemporary Culture and Society, The Sydney Riots – What Significance? School of Anthropology, Geography and Environmental Studies Public Debate Series, April 

2005

Vietnamese women and “f” words—freedom, fate, face and family—lifeworlds of Vietnamese-Australian women, Invited paper - “Vietnamese Presence Conference: 30 years of settlement in Australia, University of Melbourne; September 30, 

I research across the broad areas of ‘gender and culture’ with a particular focus on global, cross-cultural and multicultural contexts. I have undertaken long-term fieldwork among Vietnamese-Australian women. My current research examines global intersections of gender, culture, religion and human rights

Gender Culture Religion and Multicultural Shifts
Through ethnographic analysis of a number of ‘problematic’ clashes of gender and culture across a range of scales – local, national and global I examine the frames through which these ‘problems’ are articulated (rights, equality, feminism, secularism, law, backwardness), with a view to expanding available conceptual and political frames for navigating gender, culture, religion and difference in local and global contexts.

Urban placemaking and social equity in cities of superdiversity
With Professor Ruth Fincherand Dr Kate Shaw (both University of Melbourne) investigating social equity and cultural diversity in urban renewal placemaking practices.

Imagining Muslim Women – social, civic and political impacts of women’s human rights campaigns
Examination of the content and effects of human rights campaign images of Muslim and ‘other’ women. The project is located in two fields -  (i) human rights – how and why such images drive global human rights campaigns; (ii) citizenship – how these images enable and constrain the participation of Muslim and immigrant women in public life.

Southeast Asian Filial Piety: the impact of mobility on a core Asian Value
With Dr Julian Lee (RMIT), Professor Paul Battersby (RMIT), Dr Joseph Goh (Sunway, Malaysia). Increased migration within and beyond Asia and other demands of the global economy has challenged the capacity of people to maintain their traditional obligations to parents. People and governments in Asia are attempting to come to terms with the legacy of their culture within a rapidly changing global economy. This project investigates the impact of this Asian migration on the value of filial piety and its effects for families, communities and the state.