Dr Alissa Macoun

This person does not currently hold a position at QUT.
Biography
Alissa Macoun joined QUT in 2020 as a Lecturer in the School of Justice. She is interested in the politics of race and contemporary colonialism.
Alissa’s work in Australian Indigenous politics and policy explores ways race is used to legitimise colonial approaches, institutions and regimes. She is interested in policy logics, political structures, academic and social knowledge production practices, as well as the connections between these processes. Her work draws on scholarship from public policy, political theory, settler colonial studies, sociology, critical race and critical Indigenous studies.
Alissa was a Lecturer at the School of Political Science and International Studies at University of Queensland from 2015-2019. Although non-Indigenous, she was a Research Fellow for the Australian Research Council's National Indigenous Research and Knowledges Network (NIRAKN) based at QUT from 2013 – 2015.
Alissa has a PhD (Political Studies) and BA (Honours, first class) from the University of Queensland. Her PhD thesis exploring the political justification of the Commonwealth’s 2007 Intervention in Northern Territory Indigenous communities won the 2013 APSA PhD Prize.
Personal details
Keywords
Indigenous Politics and Policy, Settler Colonialism, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander policy, Northern Territory Intervention, race and racism, whiteness, colonial knowledge politics, Australian politics, QUT Centre for Justice
Discipline
Political Science, Policy and Administration, Other studies in Human Society
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2008
Qualifications
- Doctor of Philosophy (University of Queensland)
Professional memberships and associations
- Member - Australian Political Studies Association (APSA)
- Member - Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association (ACRAWSA)
Selected publications
- O'Brien E, Macoun A, (2022) Responsible citizens, political consumers and the state, Acta Politica, 57 (2), pp. 377-395.
- Strakosch E, Macoun A, (2020) The violence of analogy: abstraction, neoliberalism and settler colonial possession, Postcolonial Studies, 23 (4), pp. 505-526.
- Macoun A, Parker K, Strakosch E, (2019) Australian political studies and the production of disciplinary innocence, Australian Journal of Political Science, 54 (3), pp. 378-395.
- Macoun A, (2016) Colonising white innocence: Complicity and critical encounters. In S Maddison, T Clark & R de Costa, The limits of settler colonial reconciliation: Non-Indigenous people and the responsibility to engage, Springer, pp. 85-102.
- Macoun A, Miller D, (2014) Surviving (thriving) in academia: feminist support networks and women ECRs, Journal of Gender Studies, 23 (3), pp. 287-301.
- Macoun A, Strakosch E, (2013) The ethical demands of settler colonial theory, Settler Colonial Studies, 3 (3 - 4), pp. 426-443.
- Strakosch E, Macoun A, (2012) The vanishing endpoint of settler colonialism, Arena Journal, 37 - 38, pp. 40-62.
- Macoun A, (2011) Aboriginality and the Northern Territory intervention, Australian Journal of Political Science, 46 (3), pp. 519-534.
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Alissa, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).
Awards
- Type
- Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
- Reference year
- 2013
- Details
- APSA PhD Thesis Prize 2013
- Type
- Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
- Reference year
- 2012
- Details
- University of Queensland Graduate School Dean¿s Award for Research Higher Degree Excellence
- Type
- Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
- Reference year
- 2012
- Details
- High Commendation from the Mayer Journal Article Prize panel for 'Aboriginality and the Northern Territory Intervention' published in the AJPS in 2011