Lynette W. Russell

Lynette Russell is Sir John Monash Distinguished Professor and Director, Monash Indigenous Studies Centre at Monash University. Russell specializes in Australian Indigenous history, especially in the areas of anthropological history; colonial and imperial history; nineteenth century 'race' relations; theory and indigenous archaeology; gender and 'race'; Indigenous oral history and narrative construction; and museum collections and exhibitions. Russell’s research outputs have attempted to show the agency, subjectivity and dynamism of Aboriginal responses to colonialism. Her publications include Roving Mariners: Australian Aboriginal Whalers and Sealers in the Southern Oceans, 1790-1870; Appropriated Pasts: Indigenous Peoples and the Colonial Culture of Archaeology; and Savage Imaginings: Historical and Contemporary Constructions of Australian Aboriginalities. She also authored the memoir A Little Bird Told Me, in which she investigates her own Aboriginal heritage.

Russell has worked in various Aboriginal organizations, including the Victorian Native Title Unit. She has also held positions on the Melbourne Museum Research Committee and the Expert Advisor/Reference Group of the Office of the Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability, and the Indigenous Higher Education Advisory Committee. Her Aboriginal ancestors were born on the lands of the Wotjabaluk people, who then through the colonial project married into the Pallawah people of Tasmania.

Russell is an elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, a Member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies the Royal Anthropological Institute, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and a Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University. She holds a Ph.D. from Melbourne University.