Chiara Minestrelli holds a PhD in Australian Indigenous studies from Monash University (2015). Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, her dissertation examined identity, culture and politics in ‘Australian Indigenous Hip Hop’. More specifically, her research focuses on the politics of Indigenous identity and culture in Australia’s metropolitan areas and it investigates the ways in which young Indigenous people creatively respond to the challenges imposed by a growing interconnected and globalised society and hegemonic narratives. Her study has shed further light on the strategies adopted by Australian Indigenous rappers in negotiating their identity between the cultural protocols and traditions of their community of origin and the demands of modernity. Dr. Minestrelli’s first monograph, ‘Still the Same Corroboree’? Culture, Identity and Politics in Australian Indigenous Hip Hop, is currently under review with a major academic press.
In 2009 she was awarded a PhD fellowship at the University of Udine (Italy) and, in 2010, she decided to moved to Australia to accept a doctoral position at Monash University, at the Monash Indigenous Center. During her doctorate, she presented her research at international conferences and published articles on Indigenous Australian literature, as well as ‘Aboriginal Hip Hop’. She also worked as an assistant lecturer in Indigenous History (Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia) and as assistant researcher at the Monash Indigenous Centre (Clayton, Australia). Dr. Minestrelli has recently undertaken fieldwork in Mongolia, Vietnam and Cambodia. At present, she is a visiting scholar at Lehigh University in the Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies and Africana Studies Programs. During her appointment at Lehigh, she will be investigating global issues, transnational dialogues around ‘Blackness’, and complex identity formation in relation to First Nations in North America and Australia.
