Dr Michelle Duffy
Lecturer in Australian Studies
- Telephone:
- (+61 3) 8344 0494
- Email:
- med@unimelb.edu.au
- Fax:
- (+61 3) 9347 7731
- Location:
- Room 123, 137 Barry St
Australian Centre, Carlton VIC 3053
Academic Profile (click on the link for more information)
Biography
Michelle Duffy is a lecturer at the Australian Centre. She was educated at RMIT and the University of Melbourne. Prior to working in academia, Michelle worked in research and development at CSL and ICI.
Research
Michelle is a cultural geographer, with specific research interests in the role of sound and music in creating and articulating notions of identity, place, community, belonging, alienation and social well-being. These interests have led to research exploring public space, events, emotion and affect, and performative aspects of identity formation. Recent work focuses on developing methodologies for understanding the significance of the emotional responses to music and sound in community health, wellbeing and social cohesion. Other research interests include the policies and practices of local government with regards to cultural practice, Australian-Asian cultural relations, Australian Indigenous cultural practices, tourism and festival policies and practices, multiculturalism, and contemporary cultural theory.
Michelle is currently working on a number of funded projects that examine the role of the festival in urban, rural and remote communities. These projects seek to understand and define the processes of creating communal identity and social cohesion, with a particular focus on the ways music and sound are significant to the experience of the festival. One is a consultancy project with the Four Winds Festival (Bermagui, NSW) conducted with Associate Professor Gordon Waitt (Wollongong), which examines the processes through which emotional responses to sound, music and the place in which these occur are significant to participation at a music festival. With an Early Career Researcher’s Grant, Michelle has undertaken research into women’s rituals and knowledges of exchange within the Garma Festival, an event hosted by the Yolngu people of north-east Arnhem Land.
Michelle is currently developing an ARC project with colleagues in the School of Behavioural Sciences. This project brings together the work of cultural geography and psychology in order to examine the potential a music festival has for social transformation in terms of wellbeing and feelings of belonging or exclusion within small rural communities.
Publications
Books
- Ros Bandt, Michelle Duffy and Dolly MacKinnon (eds), Hearing Places: Sound Place Time and Culture, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007.
Articles
- Michelle Duffy, Gordon Waitt, Chris Gibson, (2007) ‘Get into the groove: the role of sound in generating a sense of belonging through street parades’, in Altitude (available at www.altitude21c.com)
- Nichola Wood, Michelle Duffy, Susan Smith (accepted; 2007), ‘The Art of Doing (Geographies of) Music’, in Environment & Planning D: Society & Space
- Michelle Duffy, Melissa Permezel, (accepted; September 2007) 'Negotiating cultural difference in local communities: the role of the body, dialogues and performative practices in local communities', in Geographical Research
- Michelle Duffy, (2005) 'Performing identity within a multicultural framework', in Social and Cultural Geography (special issue on music and place), 6 (4): 677-692
- Michelle Duffy, (2003) 'We feel we found ourselves again': (re)creating identity through performance in the community music festival', in Australasian Music Research, 7: 103-112
- Michelle Duffy, (2000) 'Lines of drift: festival participation and performing a sense of place', in Popular Music, 19(1): 51-64
- Michelle Duffy, (2000) 'Australian Soundscapes: the Connections between Music, Place and Identity', in Australian Studies, 15 (1): 111-122
Chapters and other entries
- Michelle Duffy, entry on ‘Festival/spectacle’ for The International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography, Rob Kitchin and Nigel Thrift (editors-in-chief), Elsevier, to be published 2008
- Michelle Duffy, ‘Inhabiting soundscapes: “To learn from and to listen to one another…” in Ros Bandt, Michelle Duffy, Dolly MacKinnon (eds) Hearing Places: Sound Place Time and Culture, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007, pp. 321-334
- Michelle Duffy, ‘White Australia and multiculturalism', in Kate Darian-Smith and Kiera Lindsey (eds), Snapshot Two: Australian People, in the Snapshots of a Nation series, International Australian Studies Association, 2006, pp. 12-16
- Michelle Duffy, 'Lifestyle', in Kate Darian-Smith and Kiera Lindsey (eds), Snapshot Two: Australian People, in the Snapshots of a Nation series, International Australian Studies Association, 2006, pp. 29-33
- Michelle Duffy, 'Indigenous Australians', in Kate Darian-Smith and Kiera Lindsey (eds), Snapshot Two: Australian People, in the Snapshots of a Nation series, International Australian Studies Association, 2006, pp. 17-22
- Michelle Duffy, 'Community Festivals', in John Whiteoak and Aline Scott-Maxwell (eds), Companion to Music and Dance in Australia, Currency Press, 2003, pp. 275-276
- Michelle Duffy, 'Western Australian Aboriginal Musicals' in John Whiteoak and Aline Scott-Maxwell (eds), Companion to Music and Dance in Australia, Currency Press, 2003, pp. 447-448
- Michelle Duffy, 'Unruly performances: Challenges to the constitution of spatialised identities within the community music festival' (July 2004) conference proceedings for Journeys of Expression III: tourism and festivals as transnational practice, Innsbruck University (CD)
Teaching 2007
Michelle teaches Australian Studies subjects and co-ordinates a number of international programs, which reflect her research interests in various aspects of Australian studies including Australian Indigenous cultures and people, Australian performance practices, cultural diversity in contemporary Australia, rural and public culture, as well as broader issues in cultural geography.
102-005 Exploring Central Australia
102-507 Themes in International Studies
102-511 Imaging Australian Spaces
Postgraduate supervision
Michelle supervises postgraduates in a range of diverse fields, most notably Australian Studies, cultural geography, cultural and performative practices (music, dance), community events, and Australian Indigenous studies.