Margaret Mishra - Senior Lecturer and Deputy Head of School (Research, Innovation and Postgraduate Affairs), Coordinator UU200

Office: 014-221

Tel: 323-2552

Email: mishra_m@usp.ac.fj

MARGARET’s research focuses on feminism in the Pacific, indentured women’s activism and minor history. Some of her recent publications include: “Your Woman is a Very Bad Woman: Revisiting Female Deviance in Colonial Fiji” (2016); “The Suspicious Death of Depot Baby 7480: Maternal Negligence in Colonial Fiji” (2016); “Mawlee’s Murder: A Minor Historical Event” (2013); and “Between Women: Indenture, Morality and Health” (2012). Margaret hails from Suva. She completed her BA and MA degrees at the University of the South Pacific before pursuing her Phd at Monash University in Melbourne. Margaret has taught ethics at the Fiji National University and the University of the South Pacific in Fiji and gender studies and literature at Victoria University in Melbourne.

Academic Qualifications

BA in Literature/Language and Education – The University of the South Pacific

Post-Graduate Diploma in Literature – The University of the South Pacific

MA in Literature – The University of the South Pacific

PhD in Comparative Literature – Monash University

Teaching

Dr. Margaret Mishra is the Coordinator of: UU200: Ethics and Governance

Research

Feminism in the Pacific
Indentured Women’s Activism
Minor History

Publications

Articles in Refereed Journals

2024, ‘Unveiling stereotypes about Fiji’s girmitiya women’, Journal of Indentureship and its Legacies 4(1), DOI:10.13169/jofstudindentleg.4.1.0047.

2023, “The Gallows of Girmit 1886-1916”, The Journal of Pacific History, DOI: 10.1080/00223344.2023.2287522.

2021 “Emancipated Women: The Adis of Fiji and their ‘Native’ Sisters”, Journal of International Women’s Studies, 22(5), 161-174. 

2020 “The Curious Case of Montowinie (Emigration Pass 887½)”, The Journal of Pacific History. DOI: 10.1080/00223344.2019.1700104.

2018 “Undoing the ‘Madwoman’: A Minor History of Uselessness, Dementia and Indenture in Colonial Fiji”. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 19(6), 178-195. 

2016 “Your Woman is a Very Bad Woman: Revisiting Female Deviance in Colonial Fiji”, Journal of International Women’s Studies, Volume 17, Issue 4. 

2016, “The Suspicious Death of Depot Baby 7480: Maternal Negligence in Colonial Fiji”, Australian Humanities Review 59 (April/May). 

2013, “Mawlee’s Murder: A Minor Historical Event”, Double Dialogues Journal. The Event, The Subject and The Artwork, Issue 16, Spring.

2012, “Between Women: Indenture, Morality and Health”, Australian Humanities Review, Issue 52, May, p. 57-70.

2012, “Women’s Activism in Fiji: 1900-2010”, Journal of Women’s History, Special Issue, Volume 24, Summer, 2012, p.115-143.

2008 “The Emergence of Feminism in Fiji: 1920”, Women’s History Review, Volume 17, Number 1, February 2008, United Kingdom, Routledge, p. 39-56.