Dr Damian Grenfell

Qualifications

• PhD, Faculty of Arts, Monash University.
• BA (Hons), Department of Politics, Monash University.

Teaching/Work responsibilities

• Sources of Insecurity Project Manager (Incorporating ARC and VRII projects)

Globalizing violence and the War on Terror has brought with it an acute sense of insecurity. In this context, the present study is intended to map and understand the sources of that insecurity, both from ‘above’ and ‘below’. From below, the project analyses the cultural-political conditions of violence on the ground. From above, it documents Western cultural and political representations of recent arenas of violence. The overriding aim of the project is to research the commonplace claim that it is reassertions of older forms of tribalism and traditionalism or civilizational difference that are the well-spring of contemporary global violence.

• Postgraduate supervisor

As a supervisor of honours, Masters and Doctorate candidates, I have supervised students in a range of topics that are central to my research interests (see below), including the East Timorese independence movement, resistance movements in Burma, the media representation of war, and the anti-corporate globalisation movement. I am interested in supervising students in areas of social movements, the politics of resistance, nationalist movements, postcolonialism and globalization, or area studies on East Timor and Aceh.