Academy Fellow

Professor Lynda Cheshire's research spans two main areas within the social sciences: the governmentality of community development, and the sociology of neighbouring and housing.

Her early work applied governmentality theory to rural community development, examining community self-help as a development strategy and its relationship to state power and local community life. This work has been widely cited and read within rural studies, and her co-edited volume on rural governance was noted for its relevance to both researchers and practitioners. With Australian Research Council funding, she extended this framework to examine how corporate actors—mining companies and master-planned community developers—were also using community self-help strategies within their own operations, a line of inquiry supported by an ARC Future Fellowship and published in leading journals in the field.

She later moved into a second area of research: the sociology of neighbouring. Working with large administrative and qualitative datasets on neighbour disputes, she developed methodological and conceptual approaches to understanding what drives neighbour conflict, and to the role neighbours play in disaster response and in experiences of home. Her 2023 edited collection on Neighbours Around the World: An International Look at the People Next Door is one of the definitive texts in contemporary analyses of neighbouring. Alongside this work, she has helped develop the infrastructure of social science research more broadly, including international contributions on the epistemological, ethical and practical feasibility of archiving and sharing qualitative data.

Running through both phases of her research is a consistent way of working: close, long-term partnerships with government, housing providers and non-government organisations, built around a genuine exchange of knowledge, methods and data. She has attracted over $6.7 million in Australian research funding as leader and member of interdisciplinary teams, including 12 ARC Discovery, Linkage and LIEF grants and an ARC Future Fellowship, and a further $19m in UK and European research council funding as international partner.

That portfolio includes evaluations of housing models for women exiting prison, of older public housing tenants moving into purpose-built seniors' accommodation, and of housing support for people with severe and persistent mental illness. Her research on neighbour disputes has informed the development of a dispute-resolution tool, been cited in law reform, and informed a government taskforce's communication approach during a major asbestos remediation program. 

Deputy Provost, The University of Queenland

ARC Future Fellowship (2011-2015)

University of Queensland Foundation Research Excellence Award (2011)

1. Cheshire, L. (Ed.) (2022) Neighbours Around the World: An International Look at the People Next Door. Bingley: Emerald Publishing

2. Cheshire, L., Clarke, A., & Moore, J. (2026) Out of harm’s way? The deployment of diversion in the social housing system. Housing Studies, 41(1), pp. 149-171.

3. Cheshire, L., Easthope, H. and ten Have, C. (2021) Un-neighbourliness and the unmaking of home, Housing Theory and Society 38(2), pp. 133-151.

4. Cheshire, L., Fitzgerald, R. and Liu, Y. (2018) Neighbourhood change and neighbour complaints: How gentrification and densification influence the prevalence of problems between neighbours, Urban Studies, 56(6), pp. 1093-1112.

5. Cheshire, L. and Zappia, G. (2016) Destination dumping ground: the convergence of ‘unwanted’ populations in disadvantaged city areas, Urban Studies, 53(10), 2081-98.