Maria Hynes

Dr. Maria Hynes is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Sociology at The Australian National University, holding a continuing appointment since 2009. She earned her PhD in Sociology from Macquarie University (2004) and holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) and Diploma in Applied Science.

Her research focuses on vital forces shaping social life, structural violence, and interdisciplinary art-science collaborations. Key areas include post-humanist theory, affective capitalism, and resistance beyond reactivity. Theoretical influences include Deleuze, Guattari, Spinoza, and critical race theorists like Moten and Harney.

Her work explores creative practices' role in producing collective life, ontologies of more-than-human existence, and affective dimensions of power. Recent projects examine anti-white racism discourses and ethical encounters with animal slaughterhouse practices.

Current supervisory focus includes transdisciplinary collaboration frameworks and decolonial rethinking of the human. She has secured research funding for anti-racism bystander intervention studies (2011-2017).