The ANU Pacific Institute would like to welcome Dr Priya Chattier who has recently joined the State Society & Governance in Melanesia Program as a Pacific Research Fellow.
Priya’s work is located at the intersections of academic and activist work on gender equality, women’s economic empowerment, gender relations, Hindu womanhood and Hinduism, and social change in contemporary Fiji and the Pacific Island Countries. Her recent publications focus on the capability approach and gender-sensitive measures of poverty and also on, gender and Hinduism in Fiji.
In the recent past, she has been involved in various research projects including an Australian Research Council research grant for Fiji-based fieldwork on Assessing Development: Designing Better Indices for Poverty and Gender Equity and was also a lead researcher for World Bank qualitative rapid assessment in Fiji informing the World Development Report 2012 on ‘gender and economic choice’. Priya was employed as the National Consultant for AusAID Fiji’s Market Development Fund’s research project on gender and poverty in horticulture and tourism sectors in Fiji. These research experiences required her to critically evaluate gender relations, history of women’s movements and current discourses on feminist political economy and globalization in Fiji and the Pacific.
Forthcoming Research Projects:
UNICEF funded Child Sensitive Social Protection in Fiji: An Assessment of the Care & Protection Allowance (June 2014-Aug 2014). The purpose of this research project is to conduct an in-depth assessment of Fiji’s Care and Protection Allowance- a cash transfer programme targeting children in foster or residential care and children in vulnerable households. As part of the Development Pathways’ (UK based consulting firm) team, I will be involved in conducting qualitative research as a Senior Researcher.
DFAT Fiji – funded research activity to trial Measuring Poverty and Gender Disparity project’s Individual Deprivation Measure (IDM) in Fiji. This research may be conducted in partnership with IWDA and Fiji Bureau of Statistics. The proposed study will be part of the Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development Fiji Country Work programme and will probably start in the next financial year (2014/2015). The first trial of the IDM was conducted in Phillipines (2013) and the second trial planned for Fiji might help clarify the performance of the measure and survey tool in revealing gender differences in deprivation where they exist. Further trialing is needed to refine the measure and build experience with its use and confidence in what it can reveal.
For more information please see Dr Priya Chattier’s ANU researcher profile.
