Researcher, editor, author, community organiser.

Activist ethnography, comparative cultural studies, feminist and queer theory, care, social movements, qualitative research.

I am trained as a socio-cultural anthropologist and ethnographer. My academic work is deeply rooted in activism. I completed my PhD at Griffith University in late 2023. My PhD research focused on women in grassroots activist communities in Australia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, exploring gendered politics, creative strategies of resilience and the role of DIY. My previous research explored the interplay of punk, politics and piety on the Indonesian island of Java.

My research interests include DIY pedagogy, feminist and queer studies, anarchism, social movement studies, care theory, critical debates around ethnographic methods, socio-cultural and socio-political studies in Southeast Asia.

Currently, I am working as a qualitative research consultant and translator for an international collaborative project between Griffith University and a social care organisation in France. From 2024-2025, I worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Manchester, exploring community care and food-sharing in the context of Northern England. I will be a Research Fellow at the University of Manchester from 2026-2029.

I continue to explore new international and interdisciplinary collaborations, including work on activist-police encounters, the digitisation of zines, violence and HIV, and queer care theory. I am also an editor for Interface: A Journal for and about Social Movements.

Recent work:

Imray Papineau, 2026. Care-informed militant ethnography: Centring praxis in research design, p.240-255 in 'Insights Into Creative and Participatory Research: Key Issues and Innovative Developments' (ed Laura Way and Linzi Ladlow). Bristol: Policy Press. Full book here

Strong & Imray Papineau, 2025: 'You can't demand anything from the system': Media framing of DIY climate protest campaigns in Australia. DIY, Alternative Cultures & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/27538702251356394

Al Ramadhan, Zufar & Imray Papineau. 2025. Digitising zines: An Attempt at Spreading Resistance Discourse in the Digital Era, Simulacra. Vol 8 (2), p. 271-286. https://doi.org/10.21107/sml.v8i2.31558

Imray Papineau, 2024: Doing-It-Together: grassroots community resilience and mutual aid across Australia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, p.47-62 in 'Fight for a New Normal?: Anarchism and mutual aid in the Covid-19 pandemic crisis' (ed Jim Donaghey). London: Freedom Press.

Imray Papineau, 2024: Activist work is care work: conceptualising resistance in Indonesia and the Philippines through feminist ethics, Feminist Theory, https://doi.org/10.1177/14647001241270851

Imray Papineau & Bennett, 2024: Do-it-yourself lifestyle movements in grassroots activist communities: A case study of Brisbane, Australia, Journal of Sociology, https://doi.org/10.1177/14407833241269183

Imray Papineau, 2023: Locating DIY in the digital shift: Exploring grassroots activist responses to COVID-19 in Indonesia and the Philippines, DIY, Alternative Cultures & Society. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10.1177/27538702231203374

Imray Papineau, 2023: Dilemmas of the activist-researcher: Balancing militant ethnography, security culture, and reflexive ethics in Australia, Qualitative Research. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14687941231176933

I have lived and worked on the unceded lands of the Anishinabe Algonquin and Mohawk Nations on Turtle Island, and on the unceded lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people in so-called Australia. There is no social or climate justice without Indigenous justice.
Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.

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