Rochelle Bailey joined the Department of Pacific Affairs as a Research Fellow to work on labour migration issues.

She has conducted eighteen years of ethnographic research on Pacific labour mobility while researching New Zealand’s Recognised Seasonal Employer Scheme (RSE).

Rochelle has worked on politics, intergovernmental relationships, regionalism, economics, social change, and migration issues in the Pacific since 2004.

Since joining the department, Rochelle has continued her research with her New Zealand and ni-Vanuatu participants alongside participants involved in Australia’s Seasonal Worker Program and has published three In Briefs highlighting her research. These examine development outcomes from participation in labour mobility schemes for employers, Pacific seasonal workers and communities in host and sending regions.

Furthermore, Rochelle Bailey and Roannie Ng Shiu have collaborated to examine the ways in which seasonal labour mobility can contribute to recovery from natural disasters through remittances derived from participation in labour schemes. Bailey and Ng Shiu are also co-convenors for an undergraduate course that examines various Pacific mobilities and impacts in the region.

Labour mobility; development; migration; Melanesian anthropology and politics; economic anthropology; circulation of economic and social remittances; Pacific governance and politics.