Professor Robyn Mayes

Director

Doctor of Philosophy (Curtin University of Technology)

Robyn Mayes is a Professor in the Faculty of Business and Law.  Her research is informed by a social justice agenda and critical feminist approaches.  Robyn’s work draws on the multi-stranded disciplines of Human Geography and Gender Studies. Core, interrelated research themes span corporate social responsibility and global production, gender in organisations, work and working in the gig economy, and labour migration and mobility. She has led substantial ethnographic research in rural communities; and qualitative organisational case studies. Her most recent work explores gender in STEMM research careers (ARC LP 190100216); paid work in the digital economy (ARC DP 180101191); labour mobilities including temporary transnational migration and FIFO work; and geographies of resource extraction (e.g. recent work funded by CRC ORE). Robyn has published 2 edited books, over 40 journal articles and book chapters, including in premier international journals and reference books, and is regularly invited to speak at a range of national and international fora. She has been principal or named investigator on ARC and industry grants attracting over $2million in research funds. Through her University and community service, she seeks to contribute to social justice goals. For example, she is Founding Director of the QUT Business and Law Faculty Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research and Engagement Strategy (2020-23), and Chairs the QUT Unversity Equity Committee (2021 to present). Robyn has served on the Board of the Immigrant Women’s Emergency Support Service (2016 to 2020) and served on the Federal Government Australian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) National Multi-Stakeholder Group. Google Scholar Select current projects

ARC Linkage Project (2021-23): Achieving gender equality in STEMM hospital and health service research: This project addresses the crucial and vexed question of why gender inequality remains pervasive and persistent in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine (STEMM) workforces, despite substantial and wide-ranging efforts to effect change. Specifically, it examines the systemic causes of gender inequality in hospital and health research environments, a highly under-researched area of national significance. The project will result in critically-informed, pragmatic strategies that enable health service organisations to detect and redress gender inequality. The research advances inclusive and effective STEMM workforces and, ultimately, world-leading health research practice and gender equality in Australia CIs: Robyn Mayes (QUT Business School), Paula McDonald (QUT Business School), Janet Davies (QUT Faculty of Health; Metro North Hospital and Health Service) Christina Malatzky (QUT Faculty of Health ) Peter Frederiksen (QLD Health; Metro North Hospital and Health Service)      Partners: QLD Health; Metro North Hospital and Health Service. ARC Discovery Project (2018-21) Work and workers in the digital economy: This  project investigates the organisation of paid platform work from the perspective of both workers and the intermediaries they use to find work. It focuses on the economic and socio-cultural motivations and experiences of platform workers and how companies, technologies and managerial strategies shape the nature of the work itself. The project will contribute to knowledge of workforce transitions and shifting work/home boundaries and inform the development of appropriate labour regulation. CIs:  Paula McDonald (QUT), Robyn Mayes (QUT), Damian Oliver (UTS), Andrew Stewart (UofAdelaide) and Penny Williams (QUT). CRC ORE: Navigating socio-political stakeholder environments Using the debate around the Adani Carmichael Coal Mine as exemplar, the aim of this project is to identify the complex drivers and interactions of multiple stakeholders operating in the Australian mining sector's social and political environment. From this, the project seeks to advance understandings of what might constitute 'good mining.' QUT Business School CIs : Robyn Mayes; Bree Hurst; Amelia Hine Au Pairs in Australia: this research examines the growing presence of au pairs in Australian households and what this means for the division of caring labour, the meanings of motherhood, and the role of care work in women's labour market participation. Mobile/migrant labour: this work examines labour migration in both domestic (eg FIFO) and transnational (eg temporary labour migration in the resources sector) contexts with a focus on how this mobility is gendered, how it is experienced (emotionally and physically), along with intersections with corporate social responsibility.

Projects

• Au Pairs in Australia
• Climate change and the fossil fuel divestment movement
• Intersections of transnational migration, education and rurality
• Social media in the creative sector: 'Below the line' screen industries employees
• Widening participation or widening the gap? Equity in postgraduate education

Additional information