Kathomi Gatwiri

Biography

Dr Kathomi Gatwiri is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health at SCU, an ARC DECRA Fellow at the Centre for Children & Young People (CCYP), President of the peak body Australian Women & Gender Studies Association (AWGSA) and a practising psychotherapist. Kathomi is one of Australia’s leading Afro-diasporic scholars whose award-winning interdisciplinary research investigates the intersecting topics of racial trauma, belonging, blackness, and migranthood. Since being awarded her PhD in 2017, she has attracted over $1,500,000 in highly competitive research funding. She has published over 100 traditional and Non-traditional research outputs, including the books African Womanhood and Incontinent Bodies and Afrodiasporic Identities in Australia.

Dr Gatwiri has received numerous awards for excellence in research and community service, including a Vice-Chancellor’s Award in research excellence and outstanding community impact (2022), a Vice-Chancellor Early Career Researcher Award for outstanding research achievement (2019) and a Community Impact Award as “Kenyan of the year” (2017). She is the Founder and Director of Healing Together, a service that provides accessible, culturally affirming therapeutic support for people impacted by racial trauma. 

Research

My research approach is grounded in decolonising methodologies that attempt to develop transformative knowledge about and for those people who are assigned categories of difference. I see my research strategies as a tool for centring ‘marginalised knowledge’, which is not just about ‘producing knowledge’ but an opportunity to think critically about how and who we research. Currently, my research interests are divided into three programs: 1) Research on blackness, Africanness and migranthood in Australia 2) Research on experiences of children and young people in out-of-home care and 3) Research on the scholarship of anti-racist teaching and research.

Community engagement

I am also the founder of Femicide Count- A platform that collates all reported deaths of Kenyan women who have been killed through violence. https://www.thepixelproject.net/2020/02/23/inspirational-interview-kathomi-gatwiri-co-founder-of-counting-dead-women-kenya-part-i/

Supervision

I am available to supervise HDR students interested in research that is particularly centred on decolonising methodologies and anti-racist pedagogies, as well as those interested in exploring trauma knowledge through an anti-oppressive framework.

Other

I am a registered member of the College of Counsellors and Psychotherapists.