Dr Jane Hunt

Research interests

I have twenty years experience teaching a range of Australian History, Australian Studies, Australian Cultural History and Modern History subjects across seven Australian universities. I graduated from Macquarie University with a Doctor of Philosophy in 2002, having conducted research on women in twentieth century Australian cultural history.

My research is driven by a key question: how does the ordinary person shape cultural practices and tastes? My Honours and doctoral theses focused on the ways in which women initiated, encouraged, and drew attention to a range of creative practices that eventually became institutionalised as features of the Australian fine arts landscape. From 2010 I channeled this interest in the processes of cultural agency into research relating to sport, in particular my own personal hobby, triathlon. This research resulted in the publication in 2014 of a well-received major piece of work, Multisport Dreaming: the foundations of triathlon in Australia www.multisportdreaming.com.

My current research brings the two strands together in the form of a case study of women in triathlon history. Triathlon appears to have a strong track record in terms of gender equity. As Leanne Evans, former EO of the Australian Women Sport and Recreation Association (now Women Sport Australia) put it, we need to understand the "push and shove moments," that appear to lead to advances in the pursuit of gender equity in sport. We also need to understand where the advances are incomplete or vulnerable.

As a cultural historian I am interested in the ways in which women can and have shaped triathlon, and believe that by centering histories of the sport on the stories women choose to share it is possible to gain insight into the obstacles and opportunities that women encounter in sport. Part of the challenge relates to the task of accessing the vast array of stories that remain untold in public settings. I am thus also interested in the possibilities inherent in open access digital archives as a means for collecting and sharing digital surrogates of triathlon ephemera and narratives about triathlon's past as told voluntarily and shaped independently by those who choose to tell their stories. I am thus also engaged currently in the task of developing a digital portal with the potential to support my own research, and to become a rich resource for scholars, women, triathletes, sports governing bodies and government sports entities interested in the study of women in sports.