Sean Mulcahy is a Research Officer at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS), La Trobe University. 

Previously, he worked on research projects addressing parliamentary scrutiny, native title, legal history and LGBTIQA+ rights at the Victorian Ombudsman, the Australian Law Reform Commission, Melbourne Law School, First Nations Legal and Research Services, Victoria Law School and the Victorian Local Governance Association.

Sean completed a joint PhD in the School of Law at the University of Warwick and the Centre for Theatre and Performance at Monash University, where he also held appointments as a teaching associate in Performance Studies. His doctoral research examined the performance of law through a study of courts and law from the perspective of contemporary theatre and performance research and practice. His work has been published in the Canadian Journal of Law and Society, Law and Humanities and Law Text Culture.

In addition to his academic work, Sean has also worked as a freelance actor, director and theatre producer. He has performed in the Midsumma, Melbourne Fringe and Adelaide Fringe Festivals, and at the Malthouse Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne and La Mama Theatre. He is a proud member of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance and the National Tertiary Education Union.

In the Gender, Law and Drugs (GLaD) program, Sean is currently working on an ARC-funded project addressing hepatitis C-related legal, policy and practice discrimination in a ‘post-cure’ world and another ARC-funded project on a world-first ‘post-human rights’ framework for drug policy.

Supervision

Sean has wide-ranging knowledge in legal studies as well as theatre and performance studies, and specialised expertise in the intersections of law and performance studies, and in LGBTIQA+ rights. His theoretical interests encompass cultural legal studies, theatre and performance studies and queer theory; and he has experience in qualitative research methods, including ethnographic observation, case study, comparative analysis, narrative and performance as research. Sean welcomes higher research degree supervision opportunities in a range of interdisciplinary projects in the areas of law, performance, gender and sexuality.