Research Team

The Not Drowning, Waving project is led by Dr Siobhan McDonnell and undertaken collaboratively with a team of Pacific Islander scholars and researchers. Together, the team examines how knowledge, relationships, emotions and agency shape Pacific participation in global climate governance.

Ass. Prof. Siobhan McDonnell

DECRA Fellow and Project Lead

Associate Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University

Dr Siobhan McDonnell is a lawyer and anthropologist with more than 25 years of experience working alongside Indigenous peoples in Australia and the Pacific. Since 2019, she has represented Vanuatu and Fiji in UN climate negotiations, with particular expertise in loss and damage and mitigation.

Siobhan leads the ARC DECRA project examining Pacific agency within UN climate governance through collaborative event ethnography with a team of Pacific Islander researchers. Her work combines engaged anthropology, law and public policy to support practical legal and policy outcomes.

Her research spans Indigenous land rights, climate governance, loss and damage, climate-related relocation and resettlement, gender equity, disaster governance, natural resource management, legal pluralism and the recognition of customary institutions. She has also advised Pacific governments on land reform, climate negotiations and relocation policy.

Research Interests

Pacific climate governance
Loss and damage
Indigenous land rights
Climate-related relocation and resettlement
Gender and climate change
Legal pluralism and customary institutions
Engaged and decolonial anthropology

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