Samanthi Gunawardana

Senior Lecturer, Politics and International Relations Samanthi.Gunawardana@monash.edu

Biography

Samanthi is a Senior Lecturer in Gender and Development in the Faculty of Arts at Monash University and a member of the Monash Gender, Peace and Security Centre. She is the Director of the Master of International Development Practice. Her research examines the impact of development policy on employment systems, labour, and livelihoods among rural women in South Asia, with a particular emphasis on gender, development and labour in Sri Lanka.

articles

Agricultural woman holding a staff and fishing trap photographed from behind standing on arid land with a dark sky beyond

Women bear the brunt of Asia’s climate failures

What does the future hold for the millions of women left to work in Asia’s agriculture sector battling a climate in collapse?

Politics and society

Tamil women plucking tea leaves near Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka

The microfinance debt trap

Micro loans promised war-affected Sri Lankan and Cambodian women a way out of poverty as they rebuilt their lives. Instead, the loans trapped them in debt.

Business and economy

Five women from Sri Lanka's garment industry hold up signs demanding better conditions and pay.

Listening to women in grassroots leadership in a COVID-19 world

Women have been fighting poverty pay, long hours and unsafe working conditions long before COVID-19 hit.

Celebrating women