Deanna Grant-Smith

I am a critical qualitative researcher with extensive experience conducting research in a government and academic context. I have expertise in labour, work, and institutional communication practices, and research the social, economic, cultural and gendered inequalities communicated through work systems, as well as the potential for exploitation presented by unpaid and unwaged work. My recent work highlights the institutional and policy responses required to safeguard worker wellbeing, including for surge and contingent workforces and those engaged in work-integrated learning placements and multilevel marketing organisations.

I am committed to advancing sustainable governance and infrastructural justice and have conducted research on a range of topics including gender-sensitive infrastructure and mobility policies, participatory planning and approaches to climate adaptation, and the governance and responsibilisation of heterotopic, ludic and natural spaces. I have a particular interest in the potential for radical, grassroots and insurgent practices to create change at the local, organisational and policy level through communicative and institutional processes of change.

I am open to requests to undertake funded research and knowledge translation work in communication, policy, and institutional analysis, and have expertise in providing policy analysis and advice, developing and delivering consultative approaches to inform strategic evidence-based decision-making, staff training and development, workforce planning, and organisational strategy and development.

I am currently accepting applications for PhD, Masters by Research and Honours students seeking to undertake critical qualitative or mixed methods research broadly aligned with any of my areas of research interest and expertise.