Dr Rachel Stevens
Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences
Areas of expertise: immigration history; refugee history; Australian history
HDR Supervisor accreditation status: Provisional
Phone: +61 3 9953 3931
Email: rachel.stevens@acu.edu.au
Location: ACU Melbourne Campus
ORCID ID: 0000-0001-9580-6733
Dr Rachel Stevens is a research fellow and historian based at the Centre for Refugees, Migration and Humanitarian Studies in the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences. Her research interests examine immigration admission policies, settlement experiences of migrant communities, and humanitarian aid for refugees in the twentieth century. She is keen to supervise postgraduate and honours students in any of the above fields.
Rachel has received funded fellowships from the National Library of Australia (2018), the US Department of State (2013) and during her doctoral research was a visiting scholar at the University of California San Diego's Center for Comparative Immigration Studies and the University of Texas at Austin's Department of Government. Prior to joining the Australian Catholic University in 2020, she was a researcher at the University of Melbourne (2015-2020) and a Lecturer at Monash University (2010-2014).
Publications
Sole-authored monographs
Edited collections
Refereed journal articles
- Rachel Stevens (2019). 'Humanitarianism from the Suburbs. Australian Refugee Relief and Activism during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War', Australian Journal of Politics and History, volume 64, issue 4, pp. 566-83. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajph.12622
- Rachel Stevens and Seamus O'Hanlon (2018). 'Intimate Oral Histories: Intercultural Romantic Relationships in Post-war Australia', Australian Historical Studies, volume 49, issue 3, pp. 359-77. https://doi.org/10.1080/1031461X.2018.1486444
- Seamus O'Hanlon and Rachel Stevens (2017). 'A Nation of Immigrants or a Nation of Immigrant Cities? The urban context of Australian multiculturalism, 1947-2011', Australian Journal of Politics and History, volume 63, issue 4, pp. 556-71. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajph.12403
- Rachel Stevens (2015). 'Role-play and student engagement. Reflections from the classroom', Teaching in Higher Education, volume 20, no. 5, pp. 481-92. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2015.1020778
- Rachel Stevens (2014). 'After the 'Great White Walls' Came Down. Debating the ethnicity of immigrants in Australia and the USA, 1980-1990', Immigrants & Minorities, volume 32, no. 3, pp. 262-92. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619288.2012.759748
- Rachel Stevens (2012). 'Political Debates on Asylum Seekers during the Fraser Government, 1977-1982', Australian Journal of Politics and History, volume 58, issue 4, pp. 526-41. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8497.2012.01651.x
- Rachel Stevens (2006). 'Captured by Kindness': Australian Press Representations of the Vietnam War, 1965-1970', History Australia, volume 3, pp. 45.1-45.17. https://doi.org/10.2104/ha060045
Book chapters
- Rachel Stevens (2023). 'Understanding British Return Migration' in When Migrants Fail to Stay, edited by Sheila Fitzpatrick, Joy Damousi and Ruth Balint. London: Bloomsbury. https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/when-migrants-fail-to-stay-9781350351134/
- Rachel Stevens (2021). 'The other Asian refugees in the 1970s. Australian responses to the Bangladeshi refugee crisis in 1971', in Refugee Journeys. Resettlement, Representation and Resistance, edited by Jordana Silverstein and Rachel Stevens. Canberra: ANU Press. http://doi.org/10.22459/RJ.2021.05
- Rachel Stevens (2021). 'Refugee Journeys', in Refugee Journeys. Resettlement, Representation and Resistance, edited by Jordana Silverstein and Rachel Stevens. Canberra: ANU Press. http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n7824/pdf/introduction.pdf
- Rachel Stevens (2011). 'Mismanaging Multiculturalism. The Official English Movement in the United States', in Intercultural Relations in a Global World, edited by Michele Lobo, Vince Marotta and Nicole Oke. Champaign: Common Ground Publishing
Public and media engagement
- The Guardian, 'Full Story' podcast (2023), 'Who gets to immigrate to Australia?'
- Rachel Stevens (2022). Book review: Narratives of Statelessness and Political Otherness - Kurdish and Palestinian experiences, Australian Outlook.
- Rachel Stevens (2021). 'We can't compare Australia's intake of Afghan refugees with the post-Vietnam War era. Here's why', The Conversation.
- Rachel Stevens (2019). 'Refugees, Relief and Revolution' in Unbound, the magazine of the National Library of Australia.
- Rachel Stevens (2012). 'No, the Fraser era was not a golden age for asylum seekers', The Age.
