Ms Emma Partridge

Overview

Emma Partridge commenced her PhD in Session 1, 2010, in the Indigenous Policy and Dialogue Research Unit (IPDRU) at the SPRC. Her project is titled 'Problem representation and the use of evidence in Indigenous policy making'. Emma was awarded an Australian Postgraduate Award (Industry) scholarship and her thesis forms one part of the IPDRU ARC Linkage project: Where’s the evidence? Understanding the use of evidence in Indigenous policy. She is supervised by Ilan Katz and Karen Fisher.

Emma works (part-time) as a Research Director at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at UTS, conducting research and consulting projects on the social dimensions of sustainability.

Research Summary

Emma's thesis will explore the way in which 'problems' are represented in Indigenous policy, and the political implications of this. It will consider this question in the context of the current 'problem-solving' oriented discourse of 'evidence-based policy', exploring the relationship between problem representation, research or evidence collection, and policy. Her thesis will have a particular focus on the Howard and Rudd Government policies associated with the Northern Territory Emergency Response, or 'the intervention'. The relationship between the Ampe Akelyernemane Meke Mekarle (“Little children are sacred”) report and the Federal Government’s ‘policy response’ – ostensibly based on that evidence – is but the latest example of an apparent disconnect between research evidence and Indigenous policy, and of the ongoing contestation over the nature of the policy 'problem'. It is this disconnect and contestation that the project seeks to explore, in an attempt to understand some of the reasons for the spectacular policy failure that continues to characterise so much of this area of Australian social policy.