Jody Kelman

Jody Kelman

2006 Fulbright U.S. Alumni Award Scholar

Media Profile

“As asylum becomes an ever more prominent political issue, understanding individual attitudes towards asylum seekers takes on a critical salience.”

Jody Kelman is a Magna Cum Laude Harvard graduate in social studies. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and received several awards including the Hoopes prize, which honours the most outstanding honors theses at Harvard, and the John Harvard Prize for Academic Achievement of Highest Distinction.

Jody has won the 2006 Fulbright U.S. Alumni Postgraduate Award to Australia. The award was launched in 2004 by Ambassador Thomas Pickering, former Senior Vice President International Relations, Boeing and Fulbright Alumnus to Australia, and is supported through the generous donations of U.S. Fulbright Alumnus. The award is granted to the highest ranked U.S. postgraduate applicant. Through her award, Jody will undertake a Masters in International Studies at the University of Sydney focusing on Australian attitudes towards asylum seekers.

During her undergraduate studies, Jody pursued international experiences to broaden her perspective on international affairs. She secured a position as a press researcher for an Irish political party to gain a non-American vantage point on politics. During this time she attended a human rights conference and read, for the first time, about the detention of asylum seekers. She was shocked by the ethical contradiction in which liberal democracies engage by protecting the rights of their own citizens but punishing those who come seeking the same protection. It was during this time Jody learnt about Australia’s detention centres. On her return to Harvard, Jody founded and chaired the Refugee Policy Group at the Harvard Institute of Politics.

Asylum has become an increasingly political issue over the past decade and the adoption of restrictive policies has become a key component to election victories for political parties throughout the Western world. Through interviews with Australian politicians into asylum policy making, Jody became aware of the direct influence that public opinion was having in the establishment of new asylum policies. However, she found that there were limited studies into the reasons why people hold certain beliefs towards asylum seekers.

This research inspired Jody to apply for a Fulbright award to conduct a qualitative study into the reasons behind the established public opinion towards asylum seekers. By conducting one-to-one personal interviews with Australians from geographically diverse areas, she will explore these beliefs.

“In my comparative studies, Australia’s policy towards asylum seekers appeared both extreme in its restrictiveness (by placing asylum seekers in mandatory detention) and overwhelmingly popular amongst its citizens. My research aims to explore: ‘Why do Australians believe what they do about asylum seekers?’ I hope to gain an interdisciplinary understanding of asylum issues through combining political science and law coursework.”