Rate My Professor Catherine Howlett

Catherine Howlett, BA (University of Queensland), BSc (Hons) (Griffith University), PhD (Griffith University), is Senior Lecturer and Director of Higher Degrees Research Training in the Gnibi College of Indigenous Australian Peoples at Southern Cross University. She joined Southern Cross University in 2016 after spending 20 years teaching and researching in the School of Environment at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. Howlett's expertise encompasses the political economy of mining on Indigenous lands, resource management on Indigenous lands, Indigenous curriculum development, research methodologies, Native Title, and impact assessment. Her research interests include comparative governance of resources on Indigenous lands across Norway, Sweden, Canada, and Australia; Indigenous studies; environmental studies; place and environment; Indigenous resource governance; and community impact assessment.

Howlett collaborates as a co-researcher in two major Norwegian research projects with Sami colleagues at the Arctic University of Tromsø, Norway. She supervises a number of Honours and PhD students at Southern Cross University and has extensive experience in postgraduate student supervision. Her key publications include the highly cited "Teaching sustainable development in higher education: building critical, reflective thinkers through an interdisciplinary approach" (Howlett, Ferreira, & Arthur, 2016, International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, cited 388 times); "Neoliberalism, mineral development and Indigenous people: a framework for analysis" (Howlett et al., 2011); "Accumulating minerals and dispossessing Indigenous Australians: Native title recognition as settler-colonialism" (Howlett & Lawrence, 2019, Antipode); "Indigenous agency and mineral development: a cautionary note" (Howlett, 2010); "Flogging a Dead Horse? Neo-Marxism and Indigenous Mining Negotiations" (Howlett, 2010); "Intersectionality and Indigenous peoples in Australia: experiences with engagement in native title and mining" (Osborne, Howlett, & Lohoar, 2019); and recent works such as "Including Indigenous Knowledge in Land Use Governance" (2025).