Paul Peace

About

I am a PhD candidate at the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science (CPAS) at The Australian National University. 

I am studying the science communication about the contribution of dietary overconsumption to risks of planetary destabilisation. That is, when we consume more calories and nutrients than we need, there is an associated increase in agriculture, processing, packaging, transportation, etc. Along the food chain, each of these processes creates local and global environmental and social impacts, for example, climate change, fertiliser pollution, colonial occupation of land by farm animals, and the adverse effects of water extraction. 

I feel honoured and humbled to be studying at the university and to have been awarded an Australian Government Research Training Program (AGRTP) Stipend Scholarship. 

I hold a PhD in the social construction of gender inequality (feminist social psychology), a BSc (Hons) Psychology, and a PgCert Social Science Research Methods. 

I am supervised by Associate Professor Merryn McKinnon (CPAS), Associate Professor Fabien Medvecky (CPAS), and Associate Professor Steven Lade (Fenner School of Environment & Society).  

Research interests

My transdisciplinary research centres on how to move beyond food-system overconsumption towards environmentally and socially sustainable food futures. It operates at the challenging interface between science communication and social change in an urgent environmental context. This wicked problem traverses environmental and science communication, sustainability science, psychology, sociology, health sciences, ethics, ecology, behavioural science, and Earth system science.

The excesses of the modern food system — from excessive fertiliser production, through avoidable agricultural production, processing, transport and storage, to avoidable retail, marketing, overeating and waste — increase the risk of planetary destabilisation through deforestation, fertiliser and water pollution, drained rivers, pesticide harms, biodiversity loss, climate change, and extinction. Producing and consuming beyond sufficiency also undermines social equity and health. I have brought these challenges together in a conceptual framework and meta-construct, ‘Food System Overload’.

For my PhD, I am studying sustainable food organisations and their communities to examine whether and how change is communicated, which stakeholders are responsibilised, and the role of agentic individuals and oppressive social structures.

Research questions include: How do, or could, sustainable food communities communicate the environmental impacts of food-system overconsumption? Is it a topic they want to see communicated? What key factors would sustainable food communities expect to be considered in any communications related to reducing dietary overconsumption for environmental reasons? Based on the findings, a framework of recommendations will be developed for future communications by the sustainable food community.

Curious dispositions 

• I eat a low-fat, whole-food, plant-based diet.
• I grow food, including Australian bush tucker. 
• Planted my garden with over 600 local native plants.
• Diagnosed with autism and ADHD. 
• Songwriter, guitarist, reluctant singer, and former band member. 
• Penned over 2,000 one-liner jokes. Examples include (don’t laugh):
  • I tried to run a business recycling thick cardboard, but I couldn’t cut it.
  • I ordered some anniversary flowers. They arrived a year later.
  • Origami magazine folds.

Location

Due to autistic sensitivities and in the interests of productivity, I am usually found working from home in Gubbi Gubbi Country / Sunshine Coast, Queensland. I migrated from England and I live near Murdering Creek, named after local colonial atrocities in 1862. I work towards treading ever more lightly. I pay my respects to Elders past and present, as well as to the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people of the Canberra region where the university stands.

Publications

CPAS Inclusive Science Communication Collective (2025). A Proposed Framework for Considering “Inclusive Science Communication” in Theory and Practice. Science Communication. https://doi.org/10.1177/10755470251344471

Jürgens, A. -S., Darragh, L., Peace, P., Agha, R., Viana, J. N., & Richards, I. (2024). Studying science in pop culture through textual analysis. An introduction to examining science in visual texts—Street art, comics and (animated) film. Journal of Science Communication, 23(3), Y01. https://doi.org/10.22323/2.23030401

Peace, P. (2003). 'Balancing power: the discursive maintenance of gender inequality by wo/men at university', Feminism & Psychology. 13(2): 159-180. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353503013002003 

Peace, P. (2001). The discursive maintenance of gender inequality: Analyses of student and internet discussions. [Doctoral thesis, Sheffield Hallam University]. SHU Research Archive. https://shura.shu.ac.uk/20778

Peace, P. (2000). 'Women's discursive construction of masculinities', paper presented at the First International Gender and Language Association Conference, Stanford University, California, USA 

Gough, B., & Peace, P. (2000). 'Reconstructing gender at university: men as victims', Gender and Education. 12(3): 385–398. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540250050122267