Dr Ronan Lee

Ronan’s book “Myanmar’s Rohingya Genocide: Identity, History and Hate Speech” was published by Bloomsbury in 2021 and he was awarded the 2021 Early Career Emerging Scholar Prize by the International Association of Genocide Scholars.

Ronan has a professional background in politics, media, and public policy. He was formerly a Queensland State Member of Parliament (2001-2009) and served on the frontbench as a Parliamentary Secretary (2006-2008) in portfolios including Justice, Main Roads and Local Government. He has also worked as a senior government advisor, and as an election strategist and campaign manager.

Ronan has a Bachelor of Arts (Government) from the University of Queensland, and a Master of International Relations from Monash University. His Master’s thesis was titled ‘A Politician, Not an Icon. Aung San Suu Kyi’s silence on Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya’. Ronan’s PhD is from Melbourne’s Deakin University.

His doctoral research involved conducting long-term field work in Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Thailand during 2014-2017. This work aimed to amplify the voice of Rohingya participants and involved in-depth interviews with Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, in Yangon, in the Bangladesh refugee camps, and among the Rohingya diaspora living further afield from Myanmar. Ronan is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and the Royal Asiatic Society, and actively involved with the International State Crime Initiative, the International Associaton of Genocide Scholars, and the Association for Asian Studies.

Areas of research expertise:

• Rohingya
• Myanmar
• Bangladesh
• Genocide
• Hate Speech
• Citizenship
• Forced Migration
• Climate change and migration

As a Loughborough University Doctoral Prize Fellow, Ronan is undertaking research under the mentorship of Dr Aidan McGarry that focusses on Rohingya refugee attitudes towards social vitality, placemaking, and notions of home.