Margaret Jolly


Margaret Anne Jolly , born in Sydney, Australia is an historical Anthropologist recognized as a world expert on gender in Oceania. She is professor in the College of Asia and the Pacific and Convenor of the Gender Institute at the Australian National University in Canberra. Jolly is also a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.
From 2010 to 2015, Jolly held an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship, an award valued at $2.7M. She has written extensively on gender in the Pacific, on exploratory voyages and travel writing, missions and contemporary Christianity, maternity and sexuality, cinema and art.
Jolly has held a number of prestigious academic roles including Head of the Gender Relations Centre 1992-2009; Burns Distinguished Visiting Chair, History, University of Hawaii at Manoa ; Visiting Professor, University of California, Santa Cruz ; Visiting Professor, Centre National de Recherche Scientifique and École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, France. Her work is widely held in libraries.
Jolly was made a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2020 Australia Day Honours for "significant service to education, particularly to gender and Pacific studies."