Researcher Profile

Dr Jen Couch

Faculty of Education and Arts, National School of Arts and Humanities

Areas of expertise: youth work and international development practice; refugee young people and settlement; homelessness and marginalisation; refugee education and pedagogy
HDR Supervisor accreditation status: Full
Phone: +61 3 9953 3560
Email: jen.couch@acu.edu.au
Location: ACU Melbourne Campus

I am a senior lecturer in youth work and international development. I came to ACU in 2005 with a professional background in international community development, youth work and working along side displaced and marginalised communities particularly in refugee contexts and in South Asia. My PhD was a transnational ethnographic exploration of global justice activism focusing on activists in the US, Australia, the Zapatista movement in Mexico and the Narmada dam movement in India.

I am passionate about social resilience and how to strengthen and rebuild this following experiences of community upheaval, violence, and trauma. My experience as a qualitative researcher and practitioner offers me a comprehensive understanding of the theoretical and practical challenges facing vulnerable and marginalised communities. I have published widely in the area of young people, communities and marginalisation and I am particularly interested in working in hopeful and positive ways to change social inequalities and exclusion. I have recently completed the first longitudinal ethnographic study to explore refugee young people and homelessness in Australia.

I have conducted ethnographic and qualitative research in Australia, USA, Mexico, Thailand, India and Tibet. I am experienced in a range of empirical research methods including in-depth interviews, focus groups, questionnaires, photography and ethnography and have used these in a range of fieldwork situations from global justice activism in India, USA, Australia and Mexico, working children's movements in India and Indigenous communities in the Northern Philippines. My current research is focused on the lived experience of refugee young people during COVID 19 and the way that youth and community workers have responded during the pandemic.

Select publications

• Sebastian Trew, Jen Couch, Jillian Cox, Vivien Cinque, "“We Were Already in Lockdown”: Exploring the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Australia—Mental Health, Social Isolation, Abandonment, and Financial Precarity", Health & Social Care in the Community, vol. 2023
• Couch, J., Liddy, N. & Mcdougall, J. (2021) “Our voices aren’t in lockdown” – refugee young people, challenges, and innovation during COVID 19", Journal of Applied Youth Studies.
• Couch, J. (2021) ' We were already strong' - young refugees, challenges and participation during COVID 19', Journal of Social Inclusion, 12 (1).
• Adonis, D.L. and Couch, J., 2018. Ili-based Community Organising: An Igorot Indigenous Peoples’ Concept for Grassroots Collaboration. Journal of Social Inclusion, 9(1), pp.58–70. DOI: doi:10.36251/josi.131
• Couch, J. (2019) Together we Walk: The importance of Relationship in working with refugee young people, in The Sage Handbook of Youth Work Practice
• Durant, B. Couch, J. (2019) Its just more, you know, natural: the perceptions of men who buy sex in an emerging street sex market , in SEXUALITIES. 22(3)
• Adonis, D. & Couch, J. (2017) The trails to get there: Experiences of attaining higher education for Igorot Indigenous Peoples in the Philippines, in Australian Journal of Adult Learning 57, (2)
• Couch, J. (2017) On the borders of Pedagogy: Implementing a critical pedagogy for students on the Thai Burma Border, in Australian Journal of Adult Learning, 57(1)
• Couch, J. (2017) 'Neither here nor there': Refugee young people and homelessness in Australia, in Children and Youth services Review, Vol 74.
• Couch, J. (2017) We are what we teach: Teaching Youth Work on the Thai Burma Border. , in Journal of Applied Youth Studies, v.2, n.1
• Couch, J. (2017) Do Immersion Tours have long-term transformative impacts on students? A study of Australian university students in a Tibetan host community in India, in Journal of Applied Youth Studies, v.2.n.2
• Couch, J. (2016) Deviance and moral panics, in Sociologic: Understanding Everyday Life and Culture, Oxford University Press
• Couch, J., Durant, B. & Hill, J. (2013) Uncovering Marginalised Knowledges: Undertaking research with hard to reach young people, in International Journal of Multiple Research Approaches 8(1)
• Couch, J. ‘My Life Just went Zig Zag: Homelessness and refugee young people’, in Adolescent Wellbeing: Trends, Issues and Prospects, Pullen, D.F and Caroll, A. (eds), (2013) Australian Clearinghouse for Youth Studies. Tasmania.
• Couch, J, Durant, B (2013) Survival stripped bare: Young people’s participation in an emerging street sex market. New Community Quarterly 42(11): 59–67.
• Couch, J. (2012) On Their Own: Perceptions of Services by Homeless Young Refugees, , in Developing Practice, 31
• Couch, J. (2012) Homeless Twice: Refugee Young People and Homelessness in Australia, in International Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless, 21(1)
• Couch, J., Durant, B., Hill, J. (2012) Young People, Old Issues: Methodological concerns in research with highly marginalised young people, in Youth Studies Australia (print version)

International journal review panel

• Journal of Youth Studies
• International Journal of Migration and Integration
• Journal of Social Inclusion

Public engagement

• 'Teachers can offer a safe space for students to talk about the war in Ukraine and help them take action,' The Conversation, 7 March 2022.
• 'Responding to needs of the disadvantaged in lockdown,' CathNews, 5 July 2021.
• 'How cultural blindspots and a lack of diversity undermined pandemic response,' Crikey, 26 June 2020.
• '"We all slept in the car, five of us". Young refugees talk about being homeless in Australia,' The Conversation, 21 August 2019.