In conversation: Dr Elliot Dolan-Evans
Dr Elliot Dolan-Evans, Executive Member at Monash GPS, has a unique academic and professional background spanning medicine, law and international politics. We sat down with Elliot to discuss the significance of interdisciplinary research, how academia can facilitate change, and his source of hope in an era of complex global challenges.
Elliot, what are you currently up to at Monash University?
I wear a lot of different hats at Monash. I’m an Assistant Lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine, where I teach Anatomy, and a Lecturer in the School of Law where I teach contract and public law. I also lecture in international relations within the School of Social Sciences, where I am the Unit Coordinator of International relations in theory and practice and International Political Economy. And of course, I’m an Executive Member of the Monash Global Peace and Security Centre (Monash GPS)!
Your initial engagement with academia was primarily in medicine and law disciplines. How did you become involved with feminist research?
When I was in law school, I volunteered on a research project investigating sexual violence in armed conflict. It was the first time I started learning about structural inequalities and structural violence, which I was just beginning to question at the time.
That led to an opportunity to undertake a PhD with the first iteration of Monash GPS - the Gender, Peace and Security Centre. I generally always try to say yes to new experiences. So without knowing much - or even thinking too much about it - I accepted. So it was really more by accident than design!
Is there anything that particularly motivated you to pursue research in a space that departed from your former disciplinary expertise?
My PhD research looked at women’s participation in peace during armed conflict in Ukraine, which involved a lot of field work. I think seeing inequalities on the ground and structural violence, which was largely ignored by the international community and institutions who are directly involved in implementing economic reform policies, was very eye opening. I think I just wanted to learn and understand better. That really drove me.
I figured that if I could contribute to elevating this knowledge - especially pertaining to an under-examined group in violent conflict - and get local voices and stories out to the broader public, that it would be useful. And something that I could do, especially when I've enjoyed so much structural power in my life.
So you know, I think about how I can use that privilege to hopefully make other people’s lives a little bit better, or at least to shine a light on things that people have happily ignored before.
What research are you currently engaged with?
At the moment, my research looks at the everyday political economy of war, mainly investigating how people survive and reproduce themselves daily in situations of high intensity conflict, and how the broader political economy influences their ability to do that.
No one questions the money and reforms that major financial institutions facilitate into conflict zones, because it's seen as ‘normal’. But a lot of my research argues that, actually, these have an astounding impact on people's ability to live and survive really difficult climates.
Your research has a very global perspective. Why do you think a focus on global politics is important?
International politics is very much connected to local politics. These structural violences that play out across the world are very relevant to here, at home. Our actions that we have here - through the things we economically or politically support, for example - are totally linked to violence that is happening halfway across the world. If we want to achieve any kind of positive change here or anywhere, we have to engage with that.
Monash GPS takes an interdisciplinary approach to advance global peace and security. As someone with expertise across multiple academic disciplines, why do you think an interdisciplinary lens is necessary?
This is something that's very important to me. I think the categorization of knowledge locks us into silos of understanding, which is really disastrous for mitigating contemporaneous issues. To deal with global problems holistically, we need interdisciplinary approaches.
I try to bring this perspective into my teaching, too. So for example, I teach anatomy, which, on the face of it, might seem like a purely abstract natural science. But of course, there is a lot of politics behind it. And we really need to question where these systems came from - why they are how they are, and the history behind them.
In what way do you believe academia has capacity to mitigate the structural inequalities your research addresses?
It's a complex question, because I think academia definitely has potential to be emancipatory. Because of this, I always write comprehensive summaries of my research on public websites, to try to make information more accessible.
But more broadly, I think it's really important for academics to think about and engage with global issues because we're in the best position to try to understand these, and to disseminate that knowledge. That's our social role.
And I think if you just start questioning the assumptions that we all have - which academia enables people to do - that can be a good place to start to unravel some of the structural inequalities we face in the world today.
Your research requires you to constantly engage with challenging - and often confronting - subject matter. Do you have a source of hope that inspires you to persevere through this?
The source of hope for me comes from my interaction with young people. Whether in medicine, law or politics - there's so many young people who are really passionate, and who are deeply questioning global structures.
I’ve found working in education extremely rewarding, because of the interactions I have with young people - seeing them interested and passionate and wanting to change the world. In other parts of our lives, you see the status quo so firmly entrenched, and it sometimes feels like there's no hope for change. So that's why I really love education, because young people are hungry to learn, and you can work with them in doing so.
Written by Sarah Morley