Morgan Brigg

Morgan worked in conflict resolution prior to his academic career and continues to practice as a nationally accredited mediator and facilitator. He is a political scientist focusing on cultural difference in peace and conflict, and also researches and publishes in international relations, law and dispute resolution, Indigenous politics, governance and public policy, and international development.

Much of Morgan’s research develops and applies ideas of relationism that emphasise the dynamic and interconnected nature of political life among people, cultures and nations. He has developed these ideas in peace and conflict studies to consider foundational questions about how humans organise being together while addressing practical challenges of how to manage and resolve conflict non-violently.

A key part of Morgan work is collaboration with Indigenous colleagues and peoples to understand Indigenous political systems and governance, challenge the discipline of political science to better engage with Indigenous peoples, and contribute ways of knowing and working across difference. He works closely with Prof-Aunty Mary Graham in developing Indigenous diplomacy and Aboriginal political philosophy and has completed projects on improving governance for organisations in the Aboriginal community-controlled sector.

Morgan’s current research is focused on building capacity to respond to geopolitical disorder by drawing on relationist and Indigenous methods, improving Indigenous-state relations in Australia, and advancing conflict management by developing online tools for conflict coaching and advice.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

(with Mary Graham) Politics: Philosophical Ordering by Country, Thames and Hudson (2026)

(with Druckman, Daniel, Serge Loode, and Hannibal A Thai) "The conflict coaching challenge: design and evaluation of an online conflict coach", International Journal of Conflict Management. doi: 10.1108/ijcma-07-2024-0159 (2025).

"Furthering relational approaches to peace", Journal of Peace Research. doi: 10.1177/00223433241267811 (2024).

(with Mary Graham) "Indigenous international relations: old peoples and new pragmatism", Australian Journal of International Affairs, 77 (6), 1-10. doi: 10.1080/10357718.2023.2265847 (2023)

(with Mary Graham and Martin Weber) "Relational Indigenous systems: Aboriginal Australian political ordering and reconfiguring IR", Review of International Studies, 48 (5), doi: 10.1017/s0260210521000425 (2022)

"The spatial-relational challenge: emplacing the spatial turn in peace and conflict studies" Cooperation and Conflict, 55 (4), 001083672095447-552. doi: 10.1177/0010836720954479 (2020)

"Relational and Essential: Theorising Difference for Peacebuilding", Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding. doi: 10.1080/17502977.2018.1482078 (2018)

"Beyond the thrall of the state: governance as a relational-affective effect in Solomon Islands", Cooperation and Conflict. 53, 2 doi:10.1177/0010836718769096 (2018)

Humanitarian symbolic exchange: extending Responsibility to Protect through individual and local engagement. Third World Quarterly, . doi:10.1080/01436597.2017.1396534 (2017)

(with Jodie Curth-Bibb) "Recalibrating intercultural governance in Australian Indigenous organisations: the case of Aboriginal community controlled health", Australian Journal of Political Science, doi:10.1080/10361146.2017.1281379 (2017)

"Beyond accommodation: The cultural politics of recognition and relationality in dispute resolution." Australian Journal of Family Law 29 (3, Religion, culture and dispute resolution): 188-202 (2015)

“Old Cultures and New Possibilities: Marege’-Makassar Diplomacy in Southeast Asia”, The Pacific Review 24, no.5 : 601-623 (2011)

"Autoethnographic International Relations: exploring the self as a source of knowledge" (with Roland Bleiker) Review of International Studies 36, no. 3:779-798 (2010)

“Wantokism and State Building in the Solomon Islands: A Response to Fukuyama”. Pacific Economic Bulletin 24, no. 3: 148-16 (2009)

“The Developer’s Self: A Non-Deterministic Foucauldian Frame”. Third World Quarterly 30, no. 8 (2009): 1411-1426.

“Biopolitics Meets Terrapolitics: Political Ontologies and Governance in Settler-Colonial Australia”.Australian Journal of Political Science 42, no. 3 (2007): 403-417.

“Governance and Susceptibility in Conflict Resolution: Possibilities beyond Control”. Social and Legal Studies 16, no. 1: 27-47. (2007)

“Post-Development, Foucault, and the Colonisation Metaphor”. Third World Quarterly 23, no. 3 : 421-436.(2002)

"Relational Peacebuilding: Promise beyond Crisis", Peacebuilding in Crisis? Rethinking Paradigms and Practices of Transnational Cooperation, eds Tobias Debiel, Thomas Held, Ulrich Schneckener. Routledge, 56-69, (2016).

“Beyond Captives and Captors: Settler-Indigenous Governance for the 21st Century” (with Lyndon Murphy). In Unsettling the Settler State: Creativity and Resistance in Indigenous-Settler State Governance, eds. S. Maddison and M. Brigg. Sydney: Federation Press, (2011).

“Conflict Murri Way: Managing Through Place and Relatedness” (with Mary Graham and Polly Walker). InMediating Across Difference: Oceanic and Asian Approaches to Conflict Resolution, eds. M. Brigg and R. Bleiker. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, (2011).

“Disciplining the Developmental Subject: Neoliberal Power and Governance through Microcredit”. In Prospects and Perils of Microcredit: Neoliberalism and Cultural Politics of Empowerment, ed. J. Fernando. London: Routledge, (2006).