Sir John Monash Distinguished Professor Lynette Russell AM has been appointed a Mercator Professor as part of a large project led out of the University of Potsdam. The Mercator Professorship is awarded in recognition of Professor Russell’s leadership and contribution to 'Settler Decolonisation in Country/On Land: Rehearsing Collaboration' (2025-28). The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) or German Research Foundation is Germany's central research funding organisation; they fund excellent research in the sciences and humanities. The DFG awards up to six Mercator Professorships each year.
Lynette Russell is one of Defending Country's Supporters. Her Aboriginal ancestors were born on the lands of the Wotjobaluk people in Western Victoria and Tasmania, and she is descended from convicts on the other side of her family.
Overview of Professor Russell's project
There is an urgency for Indigenous-led critical engagement with settler colonialism and global debates on coloniality. In the German context, Anglophone settler colonialism is rarely studied in comparative frameworks that address North America and Australia together and is even less often included in debates about German colonial legacies and the possibility of decolonization. The project’s collaborative research design engages with the theoretical and practical work of decolonization carried out in the settler colonies of Australia, the US, and Canada (referred to as Turtle Island by many Indigenous scholars and activists).
The focus is on how decolonization as an Indigenous-led effort can open up spaces for collaboration with non-Indigenous actors. German institutions hold significant collections of Australian Indigenous material.
Professor Russell will supervise PhDs, conduct research, facilitate international workshops and visits by Australian Indigenous communities, plus advise and mentor German researchers to explore how to explore and interrogate German settler colonialism and decolonise German institutions, including museums and higher education. This work will be completed with German colleagues and in association with a focus on Turtle Island (US and Canada) supported by Native American experts, including Mercator Professor Renae Watchman of McMaster University, Canada.
Photo credit: supplied
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