Legal anthropology has so far been relatively unrepresented in Australian academia. We're out to change that! Please join speakers Marika, Bongkot and Ishika from the Statelessness Centre at Melbourne Law School as they reflect on what legal anthropology is exactly, how it fits with their own research journey and what they see as the benefits and difficulties of practicing legal anthropology as a discipline and method.

Melbourne Law School’s Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness Centre undertakes research, teaching and engagement activities aimed at reducing statelessness and protecting the rights of stateless people in Australia, the Asia Pacific region, and as appropriate more broadly. https://law.unimelb.edu.au/centres/statelessness/about

Marika Sosnowski is a legal anthropologist and an Australian-qualified lawyer, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Melbourne Law School and a Research Associate at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) in Hamburg. Her primary research interests are in the fields of critical security studies (mainly ceasefires), local/rebel governance and legal systems (particularly issues around citizenship and belonging) with a geographical focus on Syria.

https://law.unimelb.edu.au/about/staff/marika-sosnowski

Bongkot Napaumporn is a PhD researcher at the Melbourne Law School’s Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness. Prior to commencing her PhD, she worked on statelessness for the UNHCR Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific, and at the Thammasat University’s legal clinic to provide pro bono legal assistance to stateless and displaced persons in Thailand. She was involved in key law and policy reforms in Thailand that aimed to improve stateless people’s legal status and access to human rights, and to promote their wellbeing and inclusion in Thai society. Her current research delves into the complex relationship between states, individual and identity especially in the migratory context with a focus on identity negotiation among stateless persons and migrants from Thailand in Japan.

Ishika Chatterjee is a PhD candidate and Research Assistant at the Melbourne Law School’s Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness. She holds an MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies from the University of Oxford and a BA in Anthropology from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. Prior to commencing her PhD, she worked on international refugee protection and advocacy at UNRWA (the United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) in Amman, Jordan. Her PhD research examines state violence, displacement, and contested citizenship in India’s borderlands.