Researchers
The research project is lead by a fantastic cross-disciplinary team of scholars. A larger group of local researchers in the six field work countries (Angola, Fiji, Indonesia, Mozambique, Malawi and the Philippines) are helping to translate the key research ideas into a local context, conduct field research in that country and analyse the findings.
Professor Thomas Pogge, Professorial Research Fellow at CAPPE/ANU, leads the research. He is also Director of the Global Justice Program and the Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University; Research Director of the Centre for the Study of the Mind in Nature at the University of Oslo; editor for social and political philosophy for the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy; and a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science. Professor Pogge has worked for over 30 years in the areas of justice, world poverty and human development. His recent publications include John Rawls: His Life and Theory of Justice, Oxford 2007; Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right, edited, Oxford 2007; Global Institutions and Responsibilities, edited with Christian Barry, Blackwell 2005; Real World Justice, edited with Andreas Follesdal, Springer 2005; World Poverty and Human Rights, Polity 2002; and Global Justice, edited, Blackwell 2001. He has a particular interest in issues of measurement and is an active critic of the World Bank’s poverty measurement methodology. In addition to this project, Professor Pogge also leads a team research effort towards developing a complement to the pharmaceutical patent regime that would improve access to advanced medicines for the poor worldwide, supported by the Australian Research Council, the UK-based BUPA Foundation and the European Commission.
Professor Alison M. Jaggar, a Chief Investigator on the project, is College Professor of Distinction in Philosophy and Women and Gender Studies at University of Colorado at Boulder and Research Coordinator at the Center for the Study of Mind in Nature, University of Oslo. Professor Jagger’s expertise is in feminist thought, and especially on how global and local factors can interact to aggravate the vulnerability of women and girls. She was a pioneer in introducing concerns about women and gender into academic philosophy, helping to establish the sub-discipline of feminist philosophy, serving as founding member of the Society for Women in Philosophy, and a founder of the discipline of women’s and gender studies in the early 1970s. For Professor Jagger, feminist scholarship is inseparable from feminist activism. For the last decade she has concentrated on global gender justice. She argues that the institutional structure of the present global order is gender-biased, and that these systematically gendered benefits and burdens ? which are both foreseeable and avoidable ? raise urgent questions of global gender justice.
Dr Sharon Bessell is Senior Lecturer in the Crawford School of Economics and Government at the ANU. With a background in gender and development, she has a particular focus on rights-based, participatory research with children in poor communities in developing countries.
Professor Fatima Castillo is Professor, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy and Assistant to the Dean for Research, College of Arts and Sciences at the University of the Philippines. Over two decades, her research has focused on issues relevant to poor women and other vulnerable populations, and on developing qualitative feminist and transdisciplinary methodologies. She works with NGOs and communities advocating issues of social justice and respect for human rights. Most of her recent research is in the area of gender studies and women’s rights. Professor Castillo also works with Professor Pogge on the Incentives for Global Health project.
Dr Janet Hunt is a Fellow at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR) at the ANU and a former Executive Director of IWDA and of the Australian Council for International Development. Dr Hunt has worked at CAEPR since late 2004, researching the social benefits of Aboriginal involvement in natural resource management in NSW, and the work of International NGOs with Indigenous communities in Australia. At CAEPR she has managed the Indigenous Community Governance Project, an ARC Linkage Project with Reconciliation Australia from 2004-2008. She is also President of Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation.
Dr Amy Liu is a Lecturer at the Crawford School of Economics and Government at the ANU. With a background in economics and statistical methods, Dr Liu’s research has made a significant contribution to understanding Vietnamese women’s relative economic position and to educational disadvantages experienced by girls. Her research on gender issues published in the Journal of Comparative Economics and Oxford Development Studies in 2004 was recognized as the first systematic studies on the gender pay gap in Vietnam. Her research on children’s schooling complements the research on gender by focusing on the factors that disadvantage girls’ education. She brings to the project particular knowledge of inequality and poverty indices and regression analysis.
The primary project staff are Dr Kieran Donaghue, a philosopher and former long-serving and highly experienced AusAID staff member with a deep understanding of development and a particular interest in microfinance, and Dr Scott Wisor, who recently completed his Ph.D at the University of Colorado on measuring poverty and has a particular focus on global justice, feminist philosophy and development studies. Scott’s previous roles include Senior Field Organizer for the Sudan Divestment Task Force, a project of the Genocide Intervention Network which works to empower individuals and communities with the tools to prevent and stop genocide.
IWDA’s research and policy adviser, Jo Crawford, also works part time with CAPPE/ANU as a Research Associate on the project. Jo was closely involved in the Symposium on the Harmonisation of Gender Indicators convened by IWDA in 2006 to explore ways to increase the use of gender indicators and build agreement towards use of some core indicators, as part of improving information on the impact of development activities on gender equality. She developed the background paper to inform discussion, gave a presentation about focusing on poor women, and co-facilitated Day 2, presenting a final session on ways forward with Dr Geeta Rao Gupta, Coordinator of the UN Millennium Project Taskforce Report on Gender Equality, and then President of the International Center for Research on Women, Washington.
Information about local researchers in the six field work countries will be added soon.
