ABOUT MICHELLE
Dr Michelle Peterie is an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow and University of Sydney Robinson Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences at The University of Sydney. Michelle co-leads the Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies' research themes on ‘Work, Education and Welfare’ and ‘Migration, Im/mobility and Belonging’. She is an Associate Editor of The Australian Journal of Social Issues and a recent co-convener of The Australian Sociological Association's Sociology of Emotions and Affect thematic group. Michelle has previously held Postdoctoral Research Fellowships at The University of Queensland and The University of Wollongong.
Michelle’s research investigates the impacts of social policies and practices on individual and collective wellbeing. Taking a person-centred approach - and in close collaboration with research participants and third-sector stakeholders - her work seeks to improve outcomes for disadvantaged children, families and communities. Michelle is particularly interested in lived experiences of un(der)employment, poverty and social security receipt, and in the reverberating impacts of immigration detention. Michelle is currently leading a number of research projects focused on children's experiences of parental incarceration, the reverberating impacts of immigration detention, and the complexities of care and loss across a range of empirical contexts.
Michelle’s research has been published in a range of Australian and international journals and books. She has been the recipient of both the biennial award for the best article in the Journal of Sociology (2017-2018) and the Mayer Journal Prize for the best article in the Australian Journal of Political Science (2022). Michelle is the author Visiting Immigration Detention: Care and Cruelty in Australia’s Asylum Seeker Prisons (2022), the co-author of Compulsory Income Management in Australia and New Zealand: More Harm than Good (2022), the editor of Immigration Detention and Social Harm: The Collateral Impacts of Migrant Incarceration (2024), and the co-editor of Emotions in Late Modernity (2019). Michelle has been invited to give expert evidence to the Australian Senate, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and the Crown Solicitor, and her work has received international media attention.
The purpose of this website is to provide information about Michelle’s recent and ongoing program of research. If you are interested in any of the studies mentioned here, please don’t hesitate to contact Michelle for information and/or to request copies of specific publications.
FEATURED CONTENT
Details of recent and forthcoming research outputs, including books, journal articles, conference papers and public lectures.
Overview of research concerning the rippling impacts of migrant incarceration - including recruitment information for current studies.
Overview of research on two Australian Research Council projects, examining conditional welfare policies and their impacts.
SELECT MEDIA
NEW YORK TIMES INTERVIEW - BOOKS FOR NAVIGATING GRIEF
Michelle Peterie in article by Hope Reese, The New York Times: ‘7 Books on Navigating Grief: Psychologists, Counselors and Other Experts Share the Titles they Recommend Most’
CONVERSATION ARTICLE - DEBT RECOVERY IN IMMIGRATION DETENTION
Michelle Peterie, The Conversation: ‘“Futile and Cruel”: Plan to Charge Fees for Immigration Detention Has No Redeeming Features’
CONVERSATION ARTICLE - FORCED RELOCATIONS IN Immigration detention
Michelle Peterie, The Conversation: ‘“People are Crying and Begging”: The Human Cost of Forced Relocations in Immigration Detention’
CONVERSATION ARTICLE - LIVED EXPERIENCES OF GRIEF
Michelle Peterie and Alex Broom, The Conversation: ‘We Talked to Dozens of People about their Experience of Grief. Here’s What We Learned (and How it’s Different from What You Might Think)’
CONVERSATION ARTICLE - BANNING MOBILE PHONES IN IMMIGRATION DETENTION
Michelle Peterie, The Conversation: ‘Banning Mobile Phones in Immigration Detention Would Make an Inhumane System Even Crueler’
ABC RADIO INTERVIEW - CONDITIONAL WELFARE
Michelle Peterie and Greg Marston, ABC Radio National’s Life Matters: ‘Understanding the Real Reasons People Are Unemployed’