Emma Mitchell is a Macquarie University Research Fellow in the Sociology Discipline at Macquarie University. Her research has explored culturally and linguistically diverse contexts of poverty, welfare, and housing precarity and the range of material and social supports that enable survival and make life liveable in hardship. Her current MQRF project uses a child-focused, creative approach to investigate how children’s care activities help sustain low-income families. 

Emma's recent book, Making a Life on Mean Welfare: Voices from Multicultural Sydney (2023, Policy Press/ Bristol University Press), foregrounds the multicultural realities that welfare users inhabit. The book is based on Emma's PhD in Sociology from Macquarie University and examines how minority ethnic, Indigenous and Anglo welfare users make sense of, and make their way through, Australian welfare systems. 

Emma also works with A/Prof. Emma Power (WSU), A/Prof. Kathy Mee (UoN), and A/Prof. Ilan Wiesel (UniMelb) on the ARC Discovery Project ‘Shadow Care Infrastructures: Sustaining Life in Post-welfare Cities’ (2021-2024), which asks how people reliant on government income support make ends meet and traces the often-hidden care infrastructures that sustain them. The research evaluates the benefits and harms such infrastructures produce for those receiving and providing care, and the wider community.  

Emma has previously worked with Dr Miriam Williams, Prof. Amanda Wise, and Prof. Kristian Ruming at Macquarie University on the Vertical Villages: Community, Place, and Urban Density Pilot project (October 2019 – April 2021). The project explored resident experiences of living in multicultural, high density urban environments and the potential role of faith-based organisations in facilitating place-making and community development. 

Emma specialises in qualitative methodologies. She has conducted qualitative research across multiple projects, including as a Research Officer of the ARC Discovery project on housing precarity among international students and the ARC Linkage project on experiences of waiting for social housing. She teaches an intensive introduction to qualitative research run by ACSPRI.