Current research projects

Juanita's most recent single authored manuscript explores the gender politics of economic competitiveness in Malaysia. This book considers how and why a concern with economic competitiveness has come to dominate development policy-making in Malaysia and how gender issues come to be attached (or not) to this agenda.

Juanita is also actively involved in promoting feminist and/or gendered perspectives in IPE. See for example her work on the 2018 Handbook on the International Political Economy of Gender. She has also convened a special section of the journal Politics & Gender on the need to better integrate insights from Feminist Security Studies and Feminist Political Economy. She has also published a piece with Prof.Shirin Rai on what it means to bring feminist IPE into conversation with current work on the 'everyday' in IR and IPE.

Her British Council Newton Funded project looking at women's experiences of urban resettlement in Jakarta was shortlisted for the 2019 Newton Prize. More recently, Juanita's externally funded research includes projects looking at women's experiences in STEM in Indonesia and working with an affordable housing NGO in the international development sector to develop a gender-focussed funding strategy.

Research grants (selected)

• ESRC Impact Accelerator Account Evolving Impact Fund £24,992 for the project 'Building impact:

  Practitioner engagement for gender sensitive housing solutions' (with Reall Ltd), 2025.

• Innovate UK Accelerated Knowledge Transfer (AKT) Grant £32,945 for the project 'Leveraging gender knowledge to enable sustainable income generation for affordable housing initiatives' (with Natalie Rothwell and Reall limited), 2024 .
• British Council Going Global Gender Partnership Fund £25,000 for the project 'Empowering women in STEM in Indonesia: EMPOWER-SI' (with Ella Prihatini and Lena Rethel), 2023- 4.
• British Council Newton Fund £83,000 for the project 'The everyday political economy of resettlement: Urban design, women's empowerment and the rehousing of low income groups from Jakarta' (with Lena Rethel) see project website here , 2017-18.
• ESRC Impact Acceleration Account award (£14000) for the Commission on the Crisis of Care in Austerity Britain (with Shirin Rai) 2015.
• Political Studies Association of the UK £5,000 for the Commission on the Crisis of Care in Austerity Britain, 2015.
• Griffith University Area of Strategic Investment (ASI) award and Griffith Asia Institute funding for the workshop ‘The global political economy of the household in Asia’ AU$27,000, 2011.
• Australian Research Council Future Fellowship for the project ‘The Gender Politics of Economic Competitiveness in Southeast Asia’ (AUD$681,2000) (project ref #FT0991711), 2010-2014.
• Australasian Political Science Association (APSA) AUD$6374 workshop grant for the workshop ‘Re-engaging Asia’ held at the University of Adelaide, September 2008.
• University of Adelaide Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences strategic initiatives grant (conference hosting) for the workshop ‘The Sociological Turn in IPE’ AUD$2,500, 2007.
• Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, three month Visiting Research fellowship, 2006 (fully funded – salary and travel costs).
• Qantas Researcher Travel Support Scheme, University of Adelaide ‘Labour standards and gender in SE Asia’, AUD$3,000, 2005.
• British International Studies Association workshop grant of £1,500 for the conference Hegemonic Masculinities in International Politics, 2005.
• European Commission, European Studies Programme, ASEAN-EU Junior Research Scholarship £3,000 to fund research in Malaysia and Thailand, 1999.