Rowena DICKINS MORRISONMembre associée

Research Fellow/Chercheuse
Associate member of CERCRID/Membre associée au CERCRID
Team/Equipe "Production et interactions normatives"

Rowena DICKINS MORRISON is a Research Fellow affiliated to CERCRID, Université Jean Monnet. From January 2015 to January 2016 she held a postdoctoral position at the Centre. Rowena’s research project analyses the potential significance of contemporary developments relating to Kanak customary law and legal pluralism in New Caledonia as the country enters the final phase of the Noumea Accord ‘decolonisation’ process. The project focuses specifically on the ‘Charter of the Kanak People on the Common Foundation of Fundamental Values and Principles of the Kanak Civilisation’ (Charte du Peuple Kanak sur le Socle Commun des Valeurs et Principes Fondamentaux de la Civilisation Kanak), which was adopted by a significant number of New Caledonia’s officially recognised Kanak customary authorities in April 2014 and which aims to transform legal pluralism as it currently exists in this French Pacific archipelago. The project seeks to apply insights from a range of academic approaches to legal pluralism to the analysis of the legal (and inherently political) objectives and implications of the Charter.

From November 2012 to November 2014 Rowena was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the EHESS (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales)/LAIOS (Laboratoire d’anthropologie des institutions et des organisations sociales), working within the SOGIP research team (Scales of Governance and Indigenous Peoples, www.sogip.ehess.fr/). Her research at SOGIP focused on the political and legal issues associated with Indigenous Peoples’ rights internationally and in the Pacific region, with special reference to New Caledonia and Australia. In the international domain, Rowena attended the High-Level Plenary Meeting of the UN General Assembly known as the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples (2014) and several annual sessions of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2013, 2014) as an observer on behalf of SOGIP. Her research notably considered the participation of Indigenous Peoples and their representatives within the UN system, as well as the domestic political representation of the Kanak people in New Caledonia through democratic and customary state institutions and the developments associated with Kanak customary law and legal pluralism in that country.

While a 2012 Postdoctoral Fellow at the ANUCES (Australian National University Centre for European Studies), Rowena conducted research within the framework of the EUOSSIC Erasmus Mundus Exchange Project as a Visiting Fellow at CERI (Centre d’études et de recherches internationales) Sciences Po Paris from January to October 2012. This research focused on European engagement and identity in the contemporary Pacific.

Rowena holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours 1)/Bachelor of Laws and a PhD from the Australian National University. Part of an Australian Research Council Linkage Project, Rowena’s doctoral research considered the politics of Kanak culture and identity from 1975 to 2005 through a critical discourse analysis of the New Caledonian written press coverage of three major cultural events.

Contact
Send an e-mail to Rowena DICKINS MORRISON (rowena.dickins.morrison @ univ-st-etienne.fr)