Professor Danielle Celermajer
A22 - Old Teachers' College
The University of Sydney
Telephone | +61 2 9351 7641 |
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Biographical details
My professional life has been characterised by moving between organisations whose principal focus is human rights policy, advocacy and scholarship, and seeking a greater integration between these dimensions of human rights work. Since joining the University of Sydney in 2005, I have had the privilege of establishing two postgraduate human rights programs aimed at forging precisely this type of integration between the best of scholarship and effective human rights practice. The second, the Masters of Human Rights and Democratisation (Asia Pacific Program) was established with a 1.5 million euro grant from the European Commission and is now in its sixth year with ongoing funding from the European Union and now forming part of the Global Campus of Human Rights programs.
Since 2012, I have been leading a multi-disciplinary international team seeking to identify and test new approaches to preventing torture in organisations where it is systematic and entrenched. Our team has sought to better understand the root causes of torture, particularly those residing in the cultures and processes of security organisations themselves. This project, also funded by the European Union has been working with police and police and military in Sri Lanka and Nepal in partnership with universities in those two countries.
Through these two programs and a range of others in the field of human rights, the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences has now built a highly innovative human rights program seeking to strengthen and deepen the contribution that humanities and social science scholars can make in the field of human rights.
Prior to joining the academy, I worked as a policy advisor and speechwriter to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and the Race Discrimination Commissioner in the Australian Human rights Commission.
Research interests
My research interests in the field of human rights have orbited around three related questions. First, how can we better understand and map the social, political and economic structures and dynamics that underpin and sustain human rights violations? Second, how do we design interventions that will allow us to transform those structures as a means of preventing human rights violations and, more positively, protecting and promoting human rights? Third, what type of transformative work (symbolic and material) can and should be undertaken so as to attend to past violations, and lay the foundations for a future in which relationships and identities are not held in pathological and violent patterns? In exploring these questions, I work at the interface of theory and empirical research.
Parallel with my research in human rights, I also conduct more philosophical work on questions of responsiveness, memory, mourning and the relationship between the past and future. Engaging in particular with the thought of Hannah Arendt and Emmanuel Levinas, I am interested in what authentic attentiveness to other subjects demands of us, and what types of practices cultivate our capacity to be for and with the other.
Building on both of these bodies of work, I am now turning to questions about the possibilities of attentiveness, responsiveness and justice for the more-than-human world. What affective capacities and living practices will be required to provide the felt infrastructure for recognising the rights and interests of beings other than humans? How do we cultivate the dispositions that will allow us to be alive to our embeddedness in, and immanent relationship with the more than-human? What would justice for past atrocities entail and how could practices of reparative and transitional justice be developed in relation to the more-than-human? In asking these questions, again, my work insists of a fluid movement between research that takes us into the world of practice and lively theoretical reflection informed by and informing those practices.
Teaching and supervision
Current Research Students:
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Mom Bishwakarma
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Suraina Pasha
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Catherine Eatock
Current research students
Project title | Research student |
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The Dawn Horizon: Constructing an Air Force identity at the Australian Defence Force Academy | Jarrod PENDLEBURY |
Current projects
Addressing the root causes of torture (A three year European Union funded project focusing on the Military and Police in Sri Lanka and Police and Armed Police force in Nepal);
The transmission of narrative of suffering
Legal Culture in the twentieth Century (a joint project with Professor Richard Sherwin of New York Law School).
In the media
Navigating the minefield of working with perpetrators. OpenDemocracy, 30 March 2017. Available here.
Interviewed for Tony Shepherd says baby boomers are entitled. Look who's talking, Sydney Morning Herald, 28 March 2017. Available here.
Truth and Other Casualties of the Ascent of Trump, ABC Religion & Ethics, 14 November 2016. Available here.
Respect independent statutory bodies as central to democracy, The Conversation, 16 February 2015. Available here.
The poisoned orchard of torture, Aljazeera, 20 December 2014. Available here.
Normalising violence: from Manus Is to CIA torture, The Drum ABC, 19 Dec 2014, Available here.
The Midday Program with Margaret Throsby, March 17, 2014. Available here.
Film reignites debate about Hannah Arendt, Late Night Live ABC, March 6, 2014. Available here.
Torture Causes Long Term Harm, op-ed Sydney Morning Herald, May 18th, 2012. Available here.
The inconsistency of Hannah Arendt, The Philosopher’s Zone ABC, January 29, 2012. Available here.
Videos
Professor Danielle Celermajer talks about her research interests, the European Union funded Torture Prevention Programme and Masters of Human Rights and Democratisation (Asia Pacific Program), here, and below.
Selected grants
2015
- Sydney Social Justice Clinic 2037: Interdisciplinary Learning in Real-Life Settings; Celermajer D, Mann A, Clancey G, Rawsthorne M, Cashmore J; DVC Education/Large Educational Innovation Grant.
2013
- Academic Coordinator for Research Programme 'Implementation of the Convention of the Rights of persons with Disabilities (CRPD): the participation of Disabled People's Organisation (DPOs)'; Celermajer D; European Commission (Belgium)/Research Support.
2012
- Developing a networked Asia-Pacific Masters Degree in Human Rights and Democratisation (2); Celermajer D; European Commission (Belgium)/Research Support.
- The Sydney Social Justice Project; Carney T, Celermajer D, Connell R, Freebody P, Goodwin S, Graycar R, Ivison D, Keane J, Kinley D, Meagher G, Schlosberg D, Sluga G, Tormey S; DVC Research/Research Network Scheme (SyReNS).
- The Sydney Network on Climate Change and Society; McCalman I, Schlosberg D, Bashford A, Probyn E, Allon F, Giles P, Smith V, Marks P, Celermajer D, Mikler J, Chester L, Gurran N, Shrestha K, Lyster R, McManus P, Pritchard W, Neilson J, Byrne M, Wright C, de Berigny C; DVC Research/Research Network Scheme (SyReNS).
- Addressing the root causes of torture: Actions to reduce and prevent torture in police and military settings in the Asia Pacific region; Celermajer D; European Commission (Belgium)/Research Support.
- Global Sensibilities – The New History of Ideas; Blanshard A, Caine B, Celermajer D, Ferng J, Fitzmaurice A, Gatens M, Harmon C, Johnson M, Milam J, Sluga G, White S; Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences/FASS Collaborative Research Scheme.
2011
- Democratic Governance and Human Rights Program; Celermajer D; Australia Thailand Institute/Research Support.
2010
- Australia - Thailand Human Rights Education Project; Soem T, Celermajer D; Australia Thailand Institute/Research Support.
- Research to conduct collaborative research on assessing the effectiveness of a human rights-based approach to poverty eradication and development.; Celermajer D, Valiente-Riedl E; Australian Council for International Development/Universities-ACFID Linkage Grant.
- The International Society Research Cluster; Sluga G, Celermajer D, Barrett J, Epstein C, Horne J, Poulos M, Humphrey M; Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences/FASS Collaborative Research Scheme.
- The Environmental Humanities Group; McCalman I, Bashford A, White S, McCreery C, Gibbs M, Schlosberg D, Celermajer D, Philp J, Robertson S, Fitzmaurice A, Giles P, Marks P, Hardie M, Smith V, Alt C, Race K, Allon F; Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences/FASS Collaborative Research Scheme.
2008
- Developing a networked Asia-Pacific Masters Degree in Human Rights and Democratisation; Celermajer D, Walters E; European Commission (Belgium)/Research Support.
2007
- Hannah Arendt as a Jewish Thinker; Celermajer D; University of Sydney/Early Career Researcher.
Selected publications & creative works
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Power, Judgement and Political Evil: In Conversation with Hannah Arendt (Ashgate, 2010)
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Sins of the Nation and the Ritual of Apologies (Cambridge University Press, 2009)
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