Contributors

Camilla Batalibasi is a solicitor from Solomon Islands. In her previous role as the Women in Leadership Officer with the Honiara-based nongovernmental organisation Women’s Rights Action Movement, she was a lead researcher in the Women’s Pathways to Leadership project supported by the International Women’s Development Agency.

Longgina Novadona Bayo is a lecturer in the Department of Politics and Government, Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia. She is undertaking her PhD in Anthropology and Development Studies at the University of Melbourne, with the research project entitled ‘Understanding Gender Dynamics and Women’s Political Leadership in Eastern Indonesia’.

Bronwyn Anne Beech Jones is Assistant Lecturer in History at the University of Melbourne, where she also completed her PhD in 2024. Bronwyn’s research centres on methods of narrating women’s history and experiences, with a particular focus on Indonesia.

Rachael Diprose is an Associate Professor in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. Rachael has published widely on two interrelated streams of international development research, especially on Indonesia: sustainability, gender and social inclusion; and collective action, contestation and order.

Chandy Eng is the Executive Director of Gender and Development for Cambodia. In this role, she was a lead researcher in the Women’s Pathways to Leadership project implemented by the International Women’s Development Agency.

Serena Eleonora Ford is a PhD candidate at Monash University, where she is affiliated with the Global Peace and Security Centre and the Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence against Women. She graduated from The Australian National University’s School of Culture, History and Language with first-class honours in 2022.

Dr Elise Howard was a senior research officer and PhD candidate with the Department of Pacific Affairs at The Australian National University. Her doctoral research explores women’s leadership and security in the context of climate change in the Pacific.

Tanya Jakimow is Professor of Anthropology in the School of Culture, History and Language, The Australian National University. She is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, examining women’s political labour and pathways to politics in Indonesia, India and Australia. She is the author of three books, most recently Susceptibility in Development: Micropolitics of local development in India and Indonesia (Oxford University Press, 2020).

Margaret Jolly AM, FASSA is an Emerita Professor at The Australian National University and a transdisciplinary scholar of gender and Pacific studies. She has published extensively on gender in Oceania, exploratory voyages and travel writing, missions and contemporary Christianity, maternity and sexuality, cinema and art and has a long-term interest in decolonial feminisms in Oceania.

Anna Kwai is an indigenous scholar from Solomon Islands. She is a PhD candidate in the Evolution of Cultural Diversity Initiative at The Australian National University. Anna’s current research focus is on the historiography of traditional gender relations and their contemporary interpretation in Solomon Islands, using her cultural region of Kwara’ae on Malaita as a case study.

Ruby Y.S. Lai is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. Her research interests revolve around gender, family, reproductive politics, ethnicity, migration and space in Hong Kong and China.

Dr Salmah Eva-Lina Lawrence is a transformation strategist and social scientist. At the time of writing, Salmah was Director of Systemic Change and Partnerships at the International Women’s Development Agency. She is a board member of WaterAid Australia, Honorary Associate Professor at The Australian National University, Fellow at Ormond College at the University of Melbourne and Adjunct Fellow at Macquarie University. She researches decolonial ethics and epistemology.

Melissa MacLean is an independent consultant, researcher and communicator specialising in international development, rights, gender and monitoring and evaluation. She formed part of the research support team in the Women’s Pathways to Leadership project implemented by the International Women’s Development Agency.

Donna Makini is a project officer with the Pacific Community and formerly the research and policy officer for the Women’s Rights Action Movement in Solomon Islands. In this role, she was a lead researcher in the Women’s Pathways to Leadership project implemented by the International Women’s Development Agency.

Aparimita Mishra is an independent researcher based in New Delhi. She has a PhD in economics. She works in the areas of gender, grassroots governance, the environment and development.

Deepak K. Mishra is a Professor of Economics at the Centre for the Study of Regional Development, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has worked on agrarian change, labour migration and development. Recent books include Global Poverty: Rethinking causality (Brill, 2023), co-edited with Professor Raju Das.

Dr Mema Motusaga is the former Chief Executive Officer of the Ministry of Women, Community and Social Development, Samoa. Her doctoral thesis, ‘Women in Decision Making in Samoa’, includes a detailed discussion of the temporary special measures that resulted in the introduction of a gender quota in Samoa’s parliament. Her research interests are good governance, gender equality, youth and children’s development.

Vani Nailumu is Research and Communications Officer for the Pacific-led program Balance of Power. In this role, she has worked on several research projects that explore the social norms of women’s leadership in the Pacific and, specifically, Fiji.

Sonia Palmieri is an Associate Professor and head of the Department of Pacific Affairs in the College of Asia and the Pacific at The Australian National University. Her research interests lie in the social and cultural conditions that legitimise women’s leadership in political institutions, including parliaments. In parallel, Sonia explores with students and her disciplinary peers opportunities and strategies for more inclusive research methodologies, particularly feminist methodologies.

Ken M.P. Setiawan is Senior Lecturer in Indonesian Studies at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne. Ken’s research interests include globalisation and human rights, as well as historical violence and transitional justice. She has published widely on the politics of human rights in Indonesia.

Jaemin Shim is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Government and International Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University and a Research Associate at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies. His primary research interests lie in political representation, comparative welfare states, gender and legislative politics. He is the editor of Mass–Elite Representation Gap in Old and New Democracies: Critical Junctures and Elite Agency (University of Michigan Press, 2024).

Dr Elise Stephenson is a political scientist and international relations scholar focused on gender equality, feminist and queer theory, diplomacy, national security, government, entrepreneurship and diversity and inclusion. She is Deputy Director of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at The Australian National University, a 2022 Fulbright Scholar and was recognised as one of Australia’s Top 50 Outstanding LGBTI+ Leaders 2020.

Geraldine Valei is the Senior Field Officer with CARE International in Papua New Guinea. In her former role with the Bougainville Women’s Federation, she was a lead researcher in the Women’s Pathways to Leadership project implemented by the International Women’s Development Agency.

Ramona Vijeyarasa is a Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology Sydney. Researching at the intersections of women’s rights, law and technology, she is the author of Rewriting the Rules (University of California Press, 2026), The Woman President (Oxford University Press, 2022) and Sex, Slavery and the Trafficked Woman (Routledge, 2015) and editor of International Women’s Rights Law and Gender Equality: Making the law work for women (Routledge, 2021).