Ceridwen Spark

Dr Ceridwen Spark researches gender, culture and social change.

Drawing on her doctoral training in Gender Studies and Australian Studies (PhD Monash 2002), she has conducted projects on Indigenous place-making, intercountry adoption, gender and education, gender and leadership, transnationalism in the Pacific and community and belonging in Melbourne.

Since 2007, most of Ceridwen’s research has focused on gender in the Pacific, particularly Papua New Guinea. She has examined cross-cultural interactions between Australians and Papua New Guineans and the interaction between gender, culture and education; women in leadership, women’s economic empowerment and the impact on women of social and cultural change. Her research has entailed several fruitful collaborations including with organisations and individuals in PNG, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. This includes the DFAT funded Pawa Meri project, a research and filmmaking collaboration which resulted in the production of six films about women leaders in PNG.

Ceridwen is committed to conducting research that has implications for the ‘real world’, including those most impacted by colonialism, inequity and the experience of cultural and social upheaval. She enjoys drawing on research to produce innovative outputs including films, podcasts, exhibitions and slideshows and seeks to communicate with audiences beyond the academy.

Ceridwen is a Vice Chancellor's Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Global Research in Global, Urban and Social Studies. In this capacity she conducts research and publishes on gender and social change in the Pacific, gender and education, gender and leadership and gender and spatiality in urban areas.

Ceridwen has worked with a range of stakeholders (national and international) to conduct research that contributes to understanding how gender and culture affect social change and economic development. At present she is involved in:

- Research on women’s networks and coalitions (funded by the Developmental Leadership Program)
- Biographies of women in leadership, a research and filmmaking project on (in collaboration with the Business Coalition for Women in PNG and the IFC/World Bank).

In addition, she has recently completed:

- River of Lives, an arts-research project conducted in collaboration with Maribyrnong City Council and which involved producing and curating an exhibition of the same name
- The Pawa Meri project (funded by DFAT) which involved making six films about women leaders in Papua New Guinea (released widely in the Pacific)