Our team

Alistair Thomson - CI

Monash University

As a world leader in oral history, Thomson has researched Australian military masculinity, war’s impact on families, and postwar migration and family life. His research focuses on men’s experience of family life as evidenced in archival collections of oral histories and life writings.

Jill Barnard - CI

Monash University

As a PhD candidate, Jill’s research focuses on the experience of fatherhood in ‘broken’ families, using oral history interviews with Australians who experienced out of home care during the twentieth century. Jill has previously published commissioned histories and reports on a range of aspects of Australian history, including life for those in children’s homes and orphanages in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Jonny Bell - RA

Monash University

Jonny was recently awarded a PhD for his cultural history of fatherhood in 20th -century Australia which provides a strong foundation for further research in this project.

John Murphy - CI

Melbourne University

John has an outstanding track record in Australian 20th century social, political and welfare history. His research covers changing Australian policy and legislative regimes and economic conditions that have reflected and reinforced gendered expectations of work and family life.

Kate Murphy - CI

Monash University

Kate has published influential studies of early 20th -century masculinity and rural Australia, the history of adoption and Australian youth culture in the 1960s. Her research includes the demographic and biomedical factors impacting Australian families and fatherhood, and the distinctive features of rural fatherhood.

Michael Roper - PI

Essex University

Michael is a pioneering historian of British masculinity and of emotions and subjectivity, with recent research focusing on war’s impact on family relations in Britain and Australia. On a Discovery International Award he will research men’s experience of family life.