Kirstie Broadfield

Kirstie is a PhD Candidate at James Cook University, Cairns. Kirstie started with a Bachelor of Arts in Indigenous Studies because she found she was deeply troubled by both the historical and contemporary social injustices faced by Indigenous Australian people. She followed this with Honours in Anthropology investigating the potential of an Indigenous Australian development model to address the imbalance in social, political and economic power in discrete Indigenous communities for which she was awarded the University Medal. Now Kirstie is undertaking her PhD at James Cook University investigating the extent to which unequal relations of power contribute to forms of violence experienced by Indigenous Australian people in the criminal justice system. The aim of the research is to include the previously silenced voices of Indigenous Australian people to gain their perceptions and understanding of their lived experiences of the criminal justice system.