University of Western Sydney

Faculty Member, School of Social Sciences

Lecturer in Social Sciences

About

I am a broadly trained human geographer, working across social, cultural and political perspectives. I am interested in people's everyday relationships to each other and to the places in which they live. In particular, my research focuses on the themes of sexuality, gender, family, masculinity, domesticity, home, neighbourhood and work/life balance. My PhD, completed in 2006 at Macquarie University, Sydney, examined the housing experiences and homemaking practices of gay and lesbian Australians, exploring how homes are made and used in ways which resist heteronormativity and affirm sexual difference. In 2009 I commenced a three year project (funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant) investigating the relationships between masculinity and domesticity in the context of changing gender, work and lifestyle patterns, and shifting household and family formations. At the same time, I am engaged in a project which maps the distribution of same-sex couple family households in Australia, utilising data from the Australian Census of Population and Housing. I have also conducted research on gay and lesbian lives in both suburban and rural Australia, as well as queer migration and gay and lesbian tourism. Rural studies forms another focus of my research agenda, with specific attention to festivals, heritage tourism and social difference in rural and regional Australia. From 2006-2011 I was a Research Fellow in Human Geography at the University of Wollongong. In mid-2011 I took up a position as Lecturer in Social Sciences at the University of Western Sydney.

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