Associate Professor Harriot Beazley is a human geographer and community development practitioner with experience in rights-based child centred research with children and young people, and in community based, gender-focused research in South East Asia especially Indonesia and Cambodia. Harriot’s research interests are located within social and development geography and children’s geographies. Her current research includes participatory research with children who migrate for work in South East Asia; migrant communities and stateless children in Lombok Indonesia; and marginalised communities’ experiences of change and threat in the Thai Gulf in Cambodia. Consultancies have included the Community Participation Adviser to AusAID’s Women’s Health and Family Welfare Project in eastern Indonesia (Lombok and Sumbawa), and the socioeconomic coordinator for the Institute of Sustainable Water, Integrated Management and Ecosystem Research (University of Liverpool), examining the impact of wetland restoration on the Mekong Delta, in Vietnam (DEFRA, UK). Harriot has also consulted for the AusAID funded Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (ACPACS-UQ) Vanuatu Kastom Governance Parthership — facilitating Training of Trainer workshops, and conducting research into young women’s experiences of Kastom in Port Vila.
In Indonesia, she has worked for UNICEF and Save the Children training local researchers to utilise participatory child-centred methodologies with children and young people, focusing on child labour and the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) in Java (UNICEF), children’s experiences of living in orphanages in Aceh after the Tsunami (Save, US), and Children’s experiences and views of physical and emotional punishment in South East Asia and the Pacific (Beazley, Bessell, Ennew and Waterson, 2006). View the monograph and the research protocol (PDF 1MB) * (including details of our methodology, methods used and ethical considerations).
Evaluations have included an Anti-Child Trafficking project in Java and West Kalimantan (ENABLE, SAVE, US), area based projects to combat CSEC and Child Labour in East and West Java (UNICEF) and a Child Protection Risk Assessment of the Indonesian Aid Program (DFAT).
Currently, Harriot's professional responsibilities also include roles as the Commissioning Editor (Australia and Pacific), Children's Geographies: Advancing Interdisciplinary Understanding of Younger People's Lives (Routledge, London). She is a technical adviser with both Save the Children and UNICEF (in participatory approaches with children and young people), and also with DFAT (child protection and development programs).
Harriot is also a peer reviewer for Journal of Youth Studies; Childhood; Children Youth and the Environment; Children's Geographies; Gender, Place and Culture; Human Geography; Progress in Development Studies; Asia Pacific Viewpoint; Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography; Urban Studies; Journal of South Asian Studies; Emotion Space and Society; Annals of Tourism; and Advances in Social Work and Welfare Education.
Harriot's professional background includes the attainment of her PhD (Human Geography) from the Australian National University (ANU) in 2000; her appointment as Community Participation Adviser: Women’s Health Project Eastern Indonesia (AusAID) 2000–2001; her role as Lecturer (Human Geography) Royal Holloway College (University of London) 2001–2004 and Lecturer (Community Development / Youth Studies) University of Queensland 2004–2010; and her current appointment as Lecturer (Human Geography) University of the Sunshine Coast from 2011.
Professional memberships
- Associate Member of Research Forum for the Consortium for Street Children International
- Commissioning Editor (Australia and Pacific), Children's Geographies: Advancing Interdisciplinary Understanding of Younger People's Lives (Routledge, London)
- Institute of Australian Geographers (IAG)
Professional Social Media
- LinkedIn *
Research grants
| Project name | Investigators | Funding body | Year | Focus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stateless children and transnational migration in Indonesia | Dr Leslie Butt, Dr Jessica Ball (CAPI, University of Victoria) and Dr Harriot Beazley | SSHRC (Canada) | 2014–2015 | The study focuses on migrant families in an entrenched stream of undocumented migrants between Lombok and Malaysia. The study will shed light on the disjuncture between idealised depictions of children's needs and the on-the-ground realities for economically and politically marginalised groups |
| Coral reef and water quality status and community understanding of threats on the Eastern Gulf of Thailand | Professor Bill Carter, Dr Harriot Beazley and Katherine Kelly | Asia–Pacific Network (APN) | 2013–2014
|
Participatory research with fishing communities to understand their perceptions of threat and change in Cambodia |
| Sustainable communities: A cross-cultural research initiative between Sunshine Coast and Lombok | Lombok Research Group | Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of the Sunshine Coast (A$12,500) | 2011 | Consortium of USC based staff to conduct community based participatory led research in Lombok |
| Street Youth Ten Years on in Yogyakarta, Jakarta and Bali | Dr Harriot Beazley | University of Queensland (A$13,000) | 2007–2010 | Follow-up longitudinal research from PhD study with street children who are now street youth, and part of the Indonesian formal and informal workforce in Yogyakarta, Jakarta, Bali and overseas |
Research areas
- child protection and development
- street and working children, particularly in Indonesia
- children and young people’s participation in decision making
- children’s citizenship
- child labour in South East Asia
- children and migration in Asia
- youth subcultures
- the physical and emotional punishment of children in South East Asia and the Pacific
- rights-based participatory research with children and young people
- gendered childhoods
- communities' experiences of change and threat
- community participation
- grass-roots NGOs
- rights-based approaches (RBA) to development
Teaching areas
- Introduction to Human Geography
- Development Studies
- Landscapes, Place and People
- Historical Geographies
Associate Professor Harriot Beazley's specialist areas of knowledge include human geography, historical geography, development studies, community development, landscapes, place and people, child labour in South East Asia, child protection, rights based approaches, street and working children in Indonesia.