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Melusine Martin

Dr. Melusine Martin

Landhaus Fellow

Melusine Martin’s research focuses on environmental sociology, ecopsychology, and the digital humanities. The main motivation behind her research is to understand humans’ place in nature, focusing especially on the interactions between self-identity, the nonhuman environment, and digital technology. She graduated with a PhD in environmental sociology from Sorbonne University, France, and James Cook University, Australia, and has worked as a research assistant on globally significant projects including the International Coral Reef Initiative and the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program (the largest single program of its kind worldwide).

Melusine is currently an adjunct researcher at The Cairns Institute of Research in Tropical Societies and a member of the Blue Humanities Lab. As a postdoctoral researcher, she wants to investigate the impact of digital technology on human-nature relationships, and deconstruct the interactions between virtual nature exposure, the human psychophysiological experience and environmental identity. Her aim is to develop human-nature theories that would promote proenvironmental behaviors and environmental identity in the context of virtual natural environments. Her first book, based on her PhD research, will be published with Larousse in March 2024.

RCC Research Project: Digital Waters: Understanding the Impact of Virtual Blue Spaces on Environmental Identity and Wellbeing


Selected publications:

  • “Digital Blues: Sense of Self and the Human–Nature–Technology Connection in Australian Aquatic Environments.” In Entanglements in the Blue: Critical Approaches to the Blue Humanities, edited by Maxine Newlands and Claire Hansen. London: Routledge, forthcoming.
  • “Symbiose identitaire avec la nature: Comprendre les relations humain–nature à l’ère du numérique” [Identity symbiosis with nature: Understanding human–nature relationships in the digital age]. In Les sciences humaines et sociales à l’ère du numérique: Qui est le peuple? [Human and social sciences in the digital age: Who is the people?], edited by Idriss M. Buitchoho and Melusine Martin. Warsaw: University of Warsaw Press, forthcoming.
  • “A l’ère numérique, redécouvrir notre lien à la nature” [Rediscovering our connection to nature in the digital age]. La Recherche 560 (June 2020): 67–71.
  • with Bruce Taylor, Karen Vella, Kirsten Maclean, Maxine Newlands, Brent Ritchie, Stewart Lockie et al. “Stakeholder, Traditional Owner and Community Engagement Assessment.” A report provided to the Australian Government by the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program. Australian Institute of Marine Science, September 2019.
  • “Urban Foraging: Rethinking the Human-Nature Connection in Cities.” eTropic 17, no. 1 (April 2018): 149–63. https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.17.1.2018.3647.
  • “Le besoin de nature à l’ère digitale, entre science et philosophie” [The need for nature in the digital era, between science and philosophy]. The Conversation, 11 May 2018. https://theconversation.com/le-besoin-de-nature-a-lere-digitale-entre-science-et-philosophie-95801.