Research Supervisor Connect
Professor Tess Lea is an anthropologist who specialises in the cultural life of policy. Her fundamental interest is with issues of (dys)function: how it occurs and to what, whom and how it is ascribed. Looking at everyday militarisation, extraction industries, houses, infrastructure (e.g. plumbing and roads), schools, and efforts to create culturally congruent forms of employment and enterprise from multiple perspectives, her work asks why the path to realising seemingly straightforward ambitions is so densely obstacled. She is also exploring how, using new ways of intervening in policy, a wicked place like Sydney might become a beacon of cycling and pedestrian friendly amenity. She is the author of Bureaucrats and Bleeding Hearts (2008) Darwin (2020; fp 2014), and Wild Policy: Indigeneity and the Unruly Logics of Intervention (Stanford University Press, 2020), which introduces new ways of thinking about policy as something that can be acted upon, but also shapes our everyday environments in chaotic and unequal ways.
Gender and Cultural Studies, School of Humanities (SOH)
Tess’s research is situated at the intersection of the anthropology of policy and critical race studies. Particular topics of interest include: organisational ethnography, carceral and extractive capitalism; the politics of housing and infrastructure; feminist science studies; place-based writing; public anthropology; decolonial ethics.
Tess is available to supervise in any of the subjects matching her interests above and any subjects involving ethnographic methods.
1. If you are interested in this research opportunity, you are encouraged to email the academic directly. To find the academic’s email address, follow the link provided to their profile page. Introduce yourself and provide some academic background. You may be asked for an academic transcript. Explain why you are interested in your area of research and, if appropriate, why you are interested in working with the recipient.
2. Write an initial research proposal. (Refer to How to write a research proposal for guidance.) In no more than 2000 words demonstrate how your research experience aligns with the supervisor’s and why you’re interested in this opportunity.
3. If you would like general advice in your subject area before submitting an application, contact an academic advisor listed here: https://www.sydney.edu.au/arts/study/postgraduate-research/postgraduate-research-contact.html
The opportunity ID for this research opportunity is 3133