Poppy has a strong academic and professional record in interdisciplinary cultural research, with a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts and English Literature from Sydney University; a Masters degree in Arts and Cultural Management from the University of Melbourne; and currently completing her Doctoral research  - due to submit in May 2015 - at the Centre for Cultural Partnerships, University of Melbourne.  She has built up a strong body of theoretical and practical knowledge in the intersecting cultural fields of fine arts (theory and history), visual culture, cultural heritage and archival practice, community cultural development, cultural studies, practice-as-research and critical theory. 

PhD Thesis: Beyond Voice Poverty: new economies of voice and the frontiers of speech, listening and recognition.  This interdisciplinary research takes up a critical frame to rethink the meaning, value and politics of voice under neoliberal culture and new assemblages of technology.  It historicizes and critiques prevailing theories of voice to destabilise normative frameworks of ‘democratisation’ and ‘decline’, and reframe the bounds of ‘voice poverty’.  Several ‘limit cases’ foreground how new economies of voice complicate relational, liberal-democratic and rights-based claims and tactically leverage power to remake the frontiers of speech, listening and recognition in distinctly provocative ways.

Masters (minor thesis): Creative Development: insights from culture and the arts: This study considers the role of arts-based interventions (across a range of creative media, including participatory video, photovoice and art therapy) in contributing to peace building, capacity building and resilience in post-conflict communities internationally.