Martha Macintyre is an anthropologist who initially studied History at The University of Melbourne and then moved on to postgraduate study in Anthropology at The University of Cambridge (UK) and gained her PhD at The Australian National University. She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia in 2012.
Martha has undertaken research in Papua New Guinea for over 30 years. Her early publications, based on long-term ethnography in Tubetube in Milne Bay, addressed classical ethnographic questions about matrilineal kinship and exchange through an innovative historical lens. Her work has consistently dealt with social, economic and cultural changes associated with colonisation and capitalist economic development in Melanesia.
In 1986 Martha undertook a social impact study of the goldmine on Misima in Milne Bay Province with Rolf Gerritsen. In 1995 they prepared a social risk assessment for the proposed goldmine in Lihir in New Ireland Province. This ushered in a decade of research and consultancy work in Lihir, during which time she prepared annual reports on the social impact of mining operations. She supervised five postgraduate theses on aspects of social change in Lihir between 1998 and 2008.
Martha has combined anthropological and historical scholarship with practical and policy concerns as an advisor and consultant to the Papua New Guinea government, AusAID and several multinational corporations. She has particular interest in questions about changes in women’s power, health and well being in the context of rapid social change and has written extensively on gender, human rights and violence against women.
Martha is a long term Board member of the NGO, International Women’s Development Agency, past President of the Australian Anthropological Society and now Editor of its flagship journal TAJA (The Australian Journal of Anthropology). Her most recent books include 'Managing Modernity in the Western Pacific (2011)' edited with Mary Patterson, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, and 'Women Miners in Developing Countries: Pit Women and Others, (2006)' edited with Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt, Ashgate, Abington UK.