Dr Elissa Sutherland

"Broadly I am interested in a rethinking of what constitutes a lasting and more sustainable prosperity, taking into account social, cultural, economic and environmental vulnerabilities."

Education

• B.A. (1^st class Hons) 1997 University of Tasmania
• LLB . 1997 University of Tasmania
• Ph.D. Economic Geography 2003 University of Newcastle

Research and Teaching Focus

My research and teaching focus on the following themes:

• The economy remade: globalisation, economic crises, and a politics of sustainability
• Lasting and sustainable prosperity in place
• Vulnerable workers
• Entrepreneurialism and migration
• Urban/rural labour and housing markets
• Governance and ethics mechanisms

Research

1. Sharing prosperity

I am currently working as part of a team on a project with colleagues in SGES and HUMCASS at Monash University investigating the dynamics of peri-urban transformation in the growth corridors of Melbourne. I am particularly interested in employment, enterprise and housing related decision making made at the household scale in rapidly changing rural/urban fringe localities such as Officer in Melbourne’s South-east.

A central question in understanding the urban fringe is how communities undergoing significant demographic change in that place are able to adapt so as to create sustainable and lasting prosperity in that place. Of particular interest is the potentials and constraints this particular rapid urban development creates in terms of enterprise networks as well as women’s and migrants’ roles in establishing those networks.

2. Migration, gender and work

A major focus of my research is on how migration, gender issues and work intertwine. Following from the PhD research, I continue to focus on migrant women's entrepreneurial attitudes, perspectives and livelihood strategies for home-based work in the clothing industry. See Elissa Sutherland (2009) Exploited or Entrepreneurs? A study of home-based working women in Australia’s clothing industry, VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, Berlin and available to purchase from amazon.com

I am working on a project that examines the international migration patterns, state and institutional supports and settlement strategies of post war Italian migrants who migrated to Australia via Proxy Marriage. A proxy marriage occurs when one party at the marriage ceremony is represented by a substitute known as a proxy. About 24,000 Italian-Australians married and migrated to Australia by these means and their story is largely undocumented. This project contributes to the growing research attention given to migration as a gendered process, as part of home-building, and specifically to case studies of gendered migration through marriage. This research also highlights how proxy marriage migration strengthened links between people in specific Italian regions and particular suburban contexts in Australia.

3. Human adaption and vulnerability to climate change

Other research directions I am taking include preliminary work on the theoretical understandings of human vulnerability in the context of climate change. This research is part of a longer term plan to work with vulnerable communities in the developing world in partnership with Oxfam and other organisations.

My Teaching:

• ATS1309 The Global Challenge
• GES2750 Economic Spaces, Industrial Landscapes
• ATS3283/APG4283 Sharing Prosperity: geographies of work, regional development and economy
• GES3520 Social Spaces, Urban Justice

Publications

Books:

• 2009, Sutherland, E. Exploited or Entrepreneurs? A study of home-based working women in Australia’s clothing industry, VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, Berlin.

Refereed Journal Articles:

• 2010, Wilde, P. and Sutherland, E. ‘Venturing Overseas: Geography and the Cadbury Chocolate Factory at Claremont, Tasmania, 1921-67’, Tasmanian Historical Studies, Vol. 15, pp. 101-129.
• 2009, Barnett, J., Christoff, P., Rangan, H and Sutherland, E. ‘An Inconvenient Truth (2006) (Directed by Davis Guggenheim and Al Gore, Paramount Pictures, USA): Review Symposium’, Geographical Research, 47(2), pp. 204–211.
• 2009, Hernandez, Adriana , Kentala, Janice , Ngo, Mary , Schantz, Cynthia , Thien, Deborah , Anderson, Christian M. , Dahlman, Carl T. and Sutherland, Elissa (2009) 'Book Reviews', Social & Cultural Geography, 10: 5, 615 —624, review of Helma Lutz (ed.) Migration and Domestic Work: A European Perspective on a Global Theme, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008.
• 2004, Sutherland, E. 'In-the-field politics: Multiple voices of outworkers and researcher', Australian Geographer, Vol. 35, Iss. 2, pp. 161-168.
• 2004, Sutherland, E., and Tandy, C. 'Getting Inside the Heads of our Audience: Creating Inclusive Public Debate' Australian Geographical Studies, Vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 406-410.
• 2000, 'Challenges of Cross-cultural Research: Methods and Processes', Inter-Cultural Studies Conference Proceedings, University of Newcastle Australia.
• 1999, Sutherland, E. 'Informal Regulation of the Informal Sector: The Home-based Worker Code of Practice (Othered again?)', in Proceedings of The Institute of Australian Geographers Conference 1998, University of Notre Dame, Fremantle.

Book Chapters:

• 2011, Sutherland, E., (submitted July 2010) ‘Asian women doing home-based garment manufacturing in Sydney, Australia’, in A. Vickers and V. Crinis (eds.) Dis-Organising labour in the clothing industry in the Asia Pacific, Routledge: Sydney.
• 2007, Sutherland, E. 'An epidemic of community, union and government induced reform? Mapping a "tipping point" for ethical governance of home-based work in NSW, Australia', in D. Buttigeig (Ed), Community and unionism: Opportunities for Renewal, Heidelberg Press, Melbourne.

Consultancy reports:

• 2000, Sutherland, E. and Asian Women at Work Inc. Chinese Outworker Responses to the NSW Department of Industrial Relations Outwork Strategy , A report formulated from focus groups discussions between Chinese outworkers and NSW DIR representatives, available from the NSW DIR.
• 2000, Sutherland, E. and Australian National Committee on Refugee Women, Vietnamese Outworker Responses to the NSW Department of Industrial Relations Outwork Strategy , A report formulated from focus groups discussions between Vietnamese outworkers and NSW DIR representatives, available from the NSW DIR.
• 2000, Sutherland, E. and Cambodian Australian Welfare Council of NSW, Cambodian/Khmer Outworker Responses to the NSW Department of Industrial Relations Outwork Strategy , A report formulated from focus groups discussions between Cambodian/Khmer outworkers and NSW DIR representatives, available from the NSW DIR.
• 1999, O'Neill P, Sutherland E., Green R and Rowe D, A World-Class Vision for change in the Textiles, Clothing & Footwear Industries Employment Studies Centre, University of Newcastle: Newcastle.

Conference presentations

• 2007, ‘Chinese Women’s entrepreneurial and self-employment experiences of home-based work in the Australian clothing industry’ Institute of Australian Geographers Conference, Melbourne.
• 2007, ‘Analysing the asylum seeker debate', presented at the Postcolonial Geographies in Australia Conference, Sydney, Australia.
• 2006, 'Married by proxy: Gendered migration, transitional belonging and transnational regionality.' Presented in a Transnationalism session, International Geographical Union Conference and joint meeting of the Institute of Australian Geographers and the New Zealand Geographical Society,'Regional Responses to Global Changes: A view from the Antipodes' 3-7 July, Brisbane, Australia.
• 2006, 'An epidemic of community, union and government induced reform? Mapping a "tipping point" for ethical governance of home-based work in NSW, Australia', Community and Unions Conference, Melbourne, Australia.
• 2005, 'Boundaries of governance: ethical clothing initiatives in Australia', presented in a Geographies of Responsibility Session, The Association of American Geographers Conference, April 5-9, Denver Colorado, USA .
• 2004, 'An ethnography of outworking' Institute of Australian Geographers Conference, April, Glenelg, Adelaide, Australia.
• 2004, 'Don Watson's Death Sentence: A feminist retort', Institute of Australian Geographers Conference, Glenelg, Adelaide, April.
• 2003, 'Doing Cultural geography: dialogism and research practices' The Cultural Geography Studies Group Conference, September Melbourne University, Australia.
• 2003, Discussant for a session about feminist insights for economic geography at the Summer Institute in Economic Geography, July, University of Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
• 2001, 'Governing the ungovernable? Dialogue and legislation and the NSW Outwork Strategy and Ethical Clothing Trades Act' , A Joint Symposium of the Economic Geography Study Group of the Institute of Australian Geographers and Work and Organisational Studies Discipline, University of Sydney: Towards an Enlivened Political Economy of Work: Industrial Relations Meets Geography, 13-14th November, The Women's College, The University of Sydney, Australia.
• 2001, 'Processes of othering in the regulation of clothing outwork' in an Economic Geography research Group (EGRG) Royal Geographical Society and Institute of British Geographers RGS-IBG Annual Conference, 2-5th January, University of Plymouth, UK.
• 2001, 'Interviewing Chinese women clothing outworkers: alternative narratives or mesmerising hegemonic tales?' in a session entitled 'Geographies of Gender: Explorations into Current Postgraduate Research' (Women and Geography Study Group WGSG) Royal Geographical Society and Institute of British Geographers RGS-IBG Annual Conference, 2-5th January, University of Plymouth, UK.
• 2001, 'Places and progressions of empowerment: Chinese women clothing outworkers meet the regulation makers' in a session entitled 'Women at the Edge: Border Crossings, Risk and Resistance' (Women and Geography Study Group WGSG) Royal Geographical Society and Institute of British Geographers RGS-IBG Annual Conference, 2-5th January, University of Plymouth, UK .
• 2000, 'The chameleon state: policy and strategies for governing home-based outwork in the Australian Clothing Industry' Global Conference on Economic Geography, 5-9th December, The National University of Singapore, Singapore.
• 1999, 'Challenges of Cross-Cultural Research: Methods and Processes', Inter-Cultural Studies Conference October 25-26th, University of Newcastle, Australia.
• 1999, 'Interviewing NESB Women: Translations and Variations', Inter-Cultural Studies Conference October 25-26th, University of Newcastle, Australia.
• 1999, 'Creating new spaces for the voices of home-based outworkers', Institute of Australian Geographers' 1999 Conference: Geography at the Millenium, 27th Sept - 1 October, University of Sydney, Australia.
• 1999, 'Producing/presenting and performing knowledges: Documentaries of outwork and alternative representations in the grotesque and carnivalesque in 'Goodness Gracious Me', at the Celluloid Geographies Economic Geography and Gender and Geography Joint Study Group Meeting, 18-19th February, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
• 1999, 'Resisting the monologic text: creating new spaces for the voices of home-based outworkers', at the Southern Regional Conference of the International Geographical Union Commission on Gender, 8-11 February, Department of Geography University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
• 1998, 'Informal Regulation of the Informal Sector: The Home-based Worker Code of Practice (Othered again?)', Institute of Australian Geographers Conference, 29th June - 3rd July, University of Notre Dame, Fremantle, Australia.
• 1998, 'The Home-based Worker Code of Practice (Othered again?)' Social Justice/ Social Judgement Conference: Questions of Value and Contemporary Australian Society, April 25-26th, Blacktown Campus, University of Western Sydney, Australia.

Address

• Room No: E756A, Menzies Building
• Telephone Number: +61 3 990 52963
• Fax Number: +61 3 990 52948
• elissa.sutherland@monash.edu