Alison Holland

Alison Holland is an Associate Professor at Macquarie University’s School of Humanities and a member of the Global Indigenous Futures Research Centre. Her research focuses on 20th-century Australian Indigenous history, particularly Indigenous rights, race, colonialism, and humanitarianism. She holds a BA (Hons I) and Museum Studies Diploma from the University of Sydney and a PhD from UNSW. Her monographs include Just Relations (2015) and Breaking the Silence (2019), both critically acclaimed.

Dr. Holland has held prestigious fellowships at the National Library of Australia (2022) and the National Archives of Australia (2013–2014). She co-edits the Routledge International Handbook on Antiracism in Historical Perspective and serves on the editorial board of Black Histories: Dialogues. Her current projects include a history of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) funded by an ARC DP grant.

Her teaching includes courses on human rights, revolutions, and transnational Indigenous governance. She actively supervises students in Indigenous political history, colonial humanitarianism, and race theory. Notable awards include a shortlist for the NSW Premier’s History Prize (2016).

Key projects include analyzing ATSIC’s role in self-determination and exploring interwar Aboriginal policy. Dr. Holland’s work bridges historical scholarship with contemporary Indigenous advocacy, emphasizing decolonial frameworks and antiracist praxis.