Affiliated Researchers

Dr Samantha Balaton-Chrimes
Dr Samantha Balaton-Chrimes

Dr Samantha Balaton-Chrimes

Samantha Balaton-Chrimes is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at Deakin University (Melbourne, Australia).

Her work on statelessness is concerned with communities who are rendered stateless ‘at home’ because of identity-based discrimination, whether in law or bureaucratic practice. She investigates the practical avenues for remedying statelessness and the underlying marginalisation that causes it.

Her broader research program is concerned with enduring political questions about how difference and identity are negotiated in political communities, particularly postcolonial ones. As a political sociologist, she examines mechanisms through which such inequalities are manifest and contested, particularly bureaucracy and classification practices such as censuses and identity registration.

She has particular expertise in statelessness and marginalisation in Africa, and conducts comparative work with other postcolonial settings, including Australia. She is the author of the book ‘Ethnicity, Democracy and Citizenship in Africa: The Political Marginalisation of Kenya’s Nubians’, and numerous articles about citizenship, identity and recognition in Kenya and beyond. Her current book project, funded by an Australian Research Council grant, investigates how bureaucratic practices of ethnic classification shape political life, including access to citizenship, in Kenya.

Professor Susan Kneebone
Professor Susan Kneebone

Professor Susan Kneebone

Over the last decade Susan’s research, teaching and publications have focussed on forced migration, including refugees, statelessness and citizenship, in South East Asia (SEA).   In 2006, she was awarded an ARC Linkage Grant: LP0667748; ‘Australia’s Response to Trafficking in Women: Towards a Model for the Regulation of Forced Migration in the Asia-Pacific Region’ (with Julie Debeljak and Bernadette McSherry).  A second ARC Linkage Grant followed in 2009: LP0990168; ‘Delivering Effective Protection to Victims and Prevention of Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region’.  Additionally, in 2009 she received an ARC Discovery Grant as sole Chief Investigator: DP09844404; ‘Law, Governance and Regulation of Intra-Regional Labour Migration in South East Asia: An Agenda for Protection and Development’.

As a result of research conducted under these projects Susan has extensive experience researching in SEA.  The issue of statelessness is a relevant vulnerability factor in human trafficking, especially regarding children of migrant workers and victims of forced marriage (as detailed in two reports arising under LP0990168).  The issue of citizenship is important to understanding the rights of migrant workers.  Susan’s current ARC Discovery Grant is directly relevant to these issues as it has a focus on the nationality and rights of children of marriage migrants, many of whom are stateless as a result of operation of laws.  Through this project, her geographic focus extends to East Asia (Taiwan and South Korea) and her substantive focus statelessness and the rights of children.

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Jayani Nadarajalingam
Jayani Nadarajalingam

Jayani Nadarajalingam

Jayani is a lecturer with the Melbourne School of Government and currently in the final stages of her PhD. She has a BA(Hons)/LLB(Hons) from Monash University and an LLM (Legal Theory) from New York University. Her research methodologies are primarily from political philosophy, constitutional theory and social theory. She is interested in applying these methodologies to law, politics and public policy, with a particular focus on institutional change, social justice and political leadership. Before joining the University of Melbourne in January 2019, she taught a wide range of subjects at Monash University in both the Law and Arts (philosophy) faculties. Last year she was a Kathleen Fitzpatrick visiting fellow with Professor Adrienne Stone's Laureate Program in Comparative Constitutional Law at the Melbourne Law School.

Professor John Tobin
Professor John Tobin

Professor John Tobin

Professor John Tobin is the Francine McNiff Chair in International Human Rights Law at Melbourne Law School.  He is an internationally recognised expert in human rights with special expertise in children’s rights. In 2010, he was awarded the Barbara Falk Award for Teaching Excellence by the University of Melbourne and in 2011 he was awarded a national citation for outstanding contribution to student learning in the area of human rights.  Professor Tobin’s expertise with respect to children’s rights has particular salience for the Centre in light of the fact that UNHCR estimates that there is a stateless child being born at least every 10 minutes, and observes that the effects of being born stateless are profound especially in terms of access to the most basic of human rights such as medical care. Therefore, research and advocacy with regard to the link between children’s rights and statelessness is essential to finding solutions to statelessness.    More information...