Associate ProfessorAmanda Tattersall

Social Change Strategy

Amanda is one of Australia's leading authorities on community organising, social change and the relationship between different forms of people power, such as protest, prefigurative community experimentation, advocacy and movement-based political parties. You can hear her analysis on the ChangeMakers Podcast where she interviews people making change from around the world (Australia's most downloaded social change podcast, with over 2 million downloads) . Or you can read her policy, training, academic and other materials via her website here, medium blog here or Substack.

Amanda is an engaged public intellectual. Building on decades of knowledge drawn from her unusual position as both an experienced researcher and practitioner, she takes up speaking opportunities, conducts social change trainings and workshops, and talks in the media about social change strategy,

New thinking in Community Engaged Research

Amanda is a leading thinker and educator in community-led research methods.

There is increasing interest in research methods that put community knowledge at the centre, such as Indigenous research strategies, co-design, co-production, participatory action research, deliberative democracy, mini-publics, and the relational method. At the University of Sydney, a working group of cross-disciplinary researchers are using the phrase "Co-Create" as an umbrella term to refer to the collection of research practices that actively involve affected communities in the development of research - from concept to engagement to designing research questions to data design to data collection to authorship and impact. The power and importance of this kind of research is explored in a short piece by Amanda here.

Amanda has argued that the practice and philosophy of community organizing, as first developed by Saul Alinsky and the Industrial Areas Foundation, is particularly well suited to co-creating research with communities. Together they have written about the relational method, a research method adapted from community organizing that centres research practice on the principles of relationality, power and uncertainty.

→ The Relational Method: how community organising can reshape University research (available here in Perspectives on Politics) contributes new thinking to the community-engagement space, exploring how the 80 year old tradition of community organising not only can support the practice of community engagement, but can help us imagine how to transform universities for the common good.

Amanda has applied the relational method to the problem of climate change - responding to heightened community polarisation by using community-led research practices to involve affected communities, in all their diversity, in shaping the process of economic and social transition from the ground up. The Real Deal for Australia project runs place-based projects in Gladstone in Central Queensland, Geelong in regional Victoria, the Hunter and in Western Sydney in NSW, and has relationships with many more communities at the front line of our changing energy system.

Real Deal for Australia - shaping climate transition with affected communities

The Real Deal for Australia project was initiated in 2019 and Amanda is its Academic Chair. In 2020, in partnership with 12 national climate groups, community organisations and unions the project released "A Real Deal Report" that outlined the need for a community-led approach to crises like COVID-19 and climate change. Following this, the Real Deal invited local communities to nominate and become Real Deal 'place-based project' partners. Community groups in Gladstone in Central Queensland, Geelong in regional Victoria and Western Sydney in NSW nominated and soon joined.

• In Geelong a broad-based coalition was formed to conduct community-based research stategies. With signiciant support from the Lord Mayors Charitable Foundation Real Deal hired a local organiser and undertook a listening project with over 400 people resulting in the "A Real Deal for Geelong: Community Listening Report for Climate Transition." Between 2022 and 2025, the group has hosted several 200 person events featuring local members of parliament, the mayor and local member and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, and won a series of reforms to support community-based economic transition, such as a bus connecting the northern suburbs with the Avalon manufacturing precinct, and support for afforable housing. It has also run training in community organsing

• In Gladstone, in partnership with Queensland Community Alliance (QCA(, the Real Deal conducted a listening campaign with over 200 people and in 2022 released "A Real Deal for Geelong: Community Listening Report for Climate Transition."  The QCA continues to work on advocacy around these issues.

• In Western Sydney we partnered with the Sydney Alliance and its diverse team of community leaders to work on heat, housing and electricity prices. A report on the success on the Alliance's method - of focusing on daily life experiences like energy prices to build an agenda around climate action will be released in 2026.

• In the Hunter the Real Deal is working with Hunter Community Alliance to trial strategies around community benefits in relation to renewable energy, and community engagement in just transmission.

The Real Deal has continuously sought to privilege Indigenous knowledge and leadership in its work, for instance engaging Dr Terri Janke to provide training in cultural and intellectual property to ensure our team had cultural competency, hiring Indigenous staff and engaging Indigenous engagement mentors. However building substantive Indigenous leadership in the place-based projects has faced challenges. While we have learnt from our mistakes as well as from many Indigenous leaders and researchers, we still have much more to learn and do. Regardless, we remain committed to put into practice our vision that a Real Deal for Australia must have our First Nations communities at its centre.

In 2025, Amanda became a Chief Investigator on an ARC Discovery Grant on Just Transmissions, applying this community engaged method to energy policy around transmission lines. She was also awarded an Australian Public Policy Institute Challenge Grant to strengthen community engagement strategies, and explore the practice of community benefits around renweable energy in the Hunter with the Hunter Community Alliance.

You can find out more on the Real Deal for Australia website here.