Dr Melissa Demian

Dr Melissa Demian

Senior Lecturer

Researcher profile

Phone
+44 (0)1334 46 2975
Email
md240@st-andrews.ac.uk

 

Research areas

I am primarily a legal anthropologist with longstanding interests in the legal and colonial history of Papua New Guinea, and how these have generated the complexities of its contemporary disputing systems including the hierarchy of its courts, land disputes, and informal or quasi-legal dispute management forums. Feeding into these interests are my broader work on gender, spatiality, temporality, property, kinship, and urbanisation in the postcolony.

Over the last 20+ years I have conducted research in both rural and urban settings in Papua New Guinea (PNG), working initially with its village courts and land mediation systems, and later with the district and national courts in order to explore the application - or avoidance - of customary law as it is represented in the country's Constitution. My work on customary law stems from an originary interest in how people's historical consciousness informs their legal consciousness, and their claim-staking to particular versions of cultural patrimony or authenticity in legal settings.

I have more recently conducted work, both as a consultant to international development agencies and in my own independent research, on how urban women in PNG seek redress for domestic violence. This has led to ongoing parallel research interests in how urban spaces in PNG (and elsewhere) are gendered, and in how community organisations that are too small or informal to be visible to the NGO/aid world seek to provide women and urban settlers more broadly with structures for cooperation and mutual aid.

I welcome applications from potential PhD students on topics including any of the above, as well as wider topics to do with Pacific ethnography and/or socio-legal studies.

PhD supervision

  • Mary Fairio
  • James Martin
  • Louisa Wladarsch

Selected publications

  • Addressing gendered violence in Papua New Guinea: opportunities and options

    Ashtari Abay, N., Kuehnast, K., Peake, G. & Demian, M. A., 7 Mar 2024, Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace. 28 p. (Special report; no. 528)

    Research output: Book/Report › Commissioned report

  • Anthropology and responsibility

     Demian, M. A. (Editor), Fumanti, M. (Editor) & Lynteris, C. (Editor), 31 Mar 2023, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. 209 p. (ASA monographs; vol. 57)

    Research output: Book/Report › Book

  • Open access

    Collapsing the scales of law

     Demian, M. A., 14 Dec 2023, Grassroots law in Papua New Guinea. Demian, M. (ed.). Canberra, ACT: ANU Press, p. 155-178 24 p. (Monographs in anthropology).

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review

  • Open access

    Grassroots law in Papua New Guinea

     Demian, M. A. (Editor), 14 Dec 2023, Canberra, ACT: ANU Press. 195 p. (Monographs in anthropology)

    Research output: Book/Report › Book

  • Introduction: anthropology and responsibility

     Demian, M., Fumanti, M. & Lynteris, C., 31 Mar 2023, Anthropology and responsibility. Demian, M., Fumanti, M. & Lynteris, C. (eds.). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 12 p. (ASA monographs).

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

  • Open access

    Introduction: the magic of the court

     Demian, M. A., 14 Dec 2023, Grassroots law in Papua New Guinea. Demian, M. (ed.). Canberra, ACT: ANU Press, p. 1-19 19 p. (Monographs in anthropology).

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review

  • Lae: city at the center of Papua New Guinea

     Demian, M. & Tinning, Z., 27 Mar 2023, Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, p. 10-20, 10 p. (Examining conflict dynamics in Papua New Guinea; no. 23-003).

    Research output: Working paper › Discussion paper

  • In memory of times to come: ironies of history in Southeastern Papua New Guinea

     Demian, M. A., 1 Jun 2021, Oxford: Berghahn. 228 p. (ASAO studies in Pacific anthropology; vol. 12)

    Research output: Book/Report › Book

  • Open access

    The problem of the semi-alienable anthropologist

     Demian, M. A., 1 Jan 2021, Unequal lives: gender, race and class in the western Pacific. Bainton, N., McDougall, D., Cox, J. & Alexeyeff, K. (eds.). Acton, ACT: ANU Press, p. 109-129 21 p. (Pacific series).

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

  • Open access

    Anthropology after #MeToo

     Demian, M. A., 26 Sept 2018, 1 p. Online : Cultural Anthropology.

    Research output: Other contribution

 

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