Professor Shirin Rai
What motivated you to work with the Monash Warwick Alliance?
My collaboration with Monash is based on links between Warwick Interdisciplinary Research Centre for International Development and Gender, Peace and Security Centre at Monash. Through the Alliance we were able to fund original and important work that was underpinned by my work on depletion through social reproduction and Prof Jacqui True's work on the political economy of gendered violence.
What are your top three collaboration achievements so far?
Bringing these two different strains of work together meant that we opened new avenues of research which was published in an important feminist journal, developed new methodologies for research and generated new policy perspectives on peace and care work.
What do you hope to ultimately achieve through your collaboration?
We hope to develop further the insights generated through this work to influence international institutions in their policy making on gender and work and gender an peacebuilding. We also hope to continue this collaboration through applying for funding grants. Most importantly, we hope that our research will contribute to gendered debates on peace and the political economy of care.
Can you share one fun fact about yourself or your work?
That I left Monash after a successful workshop funded by the MWA only a couple of days before everything shut down for Covid!