MsAlice Cameron

After many years working in the NSW (Australia) community in a variety of roles - social worker, community worker, NSW Police Officer, Crew Leader for the NSW Rural Fire Service - I returned to study later in life to complete a Master of Criminology at Deakin University. During this time, I was inspired by lecturer and leading green criminologist, Reece Walters, Professor in Criminology, School of Humanities and Social Science, Deakin University, to study within the field of environmental criminology. My Masters dissertation on water theft compliance and regulation in Australia, is a contributory paper to the Australian Research Council (ARC) funded Discovery Project titled, The Water Theft Project: Murray Darling Basin, led by Professor Walters, and a collaboration between Deakin University, Melbourne University and the University of New England. 

Completing my Masters in June 2025, four months later I began a Graduate Research Degree (Doctor of Philosophy), as part of a Deakin University Research Training Program Scholarship. The PhD project team includes Professor Walters as Principal Investigator, with Dr Emma Ryan and Dr Alexander Baird as Associate Supervisors. 

Seeking to further understand the state-sanctioned overextraction of water for irrigation in a dry country like Australia, the research project is a green criminological critique of the Australian cotton industry and its environmental and ecological injustice. Focusing on the use of Australian cotton in fast fashion, the research scope extends to examining the inequitable environmental burdens of textile waste between the Global North and Global South.

With a final completion date of October 2029, the PhD research will hopefully lead to further involvement with the academic field of green criminology. Despite being diagnosed as legally blind in 2025, I am determined to embrace all opportunities that come my way.