Melissa Crouch

Melissa's research interests include law and society; comparative constitutional law; and law and religion, with a focus on Indonesia and Myanmar. Her research approach is informed by legal ethnography, sociology of law, and historical anthropology. Melissa's current research is on the military as a constitutional actor in Asia, supported by an ARC Future Fellowship. This project builds on her earlier ARC Discovery Project on constitutions in authoritarian regimes, which focused on Myanmar (2018-23). Her recent book, The Palimpsest Constitution: The Social Life of Constitutions in Myanmar (OUP, 2025), was awarded the inaugural Best Book Prize 2026 of the International Association of Constitutional Law (IACL-AIDC). Her research contributes to socio-legal approaches to constitutionalism in the Global South, with an emphasis on the social lives of constitutions, the legacies of law in the post-colony, and legal pluralism. She has published in peer-reviewed journals including Law & Society Review, Law & Social Inquiry, Annual Review of Law & Social Sciences, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies and International Journal of Constitutional Law. She is the author of The Constitution of Myanmar (2019) and Law and Religion in Indonesia: Conflict and the Courts in West Java (2014). She is the editor of several volumes, including Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia (OUP 2023), Women and the Judiciary in the Asia-Pacific (CUP 2021) and The Politics of Court Reform: Judicial Change and Legal Culture in Indonesia (CUP 2019). She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities. She is the recipient of the Podgorecki Prize 2022 for outstanding scholarship of an early career socio-legal scholar, awarded by the Research Committee on the Sociology of Law, the International Sociological Association. She has also been awarded a Visiting Fellowship at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, Japan; the University of Indonesia Visiting Fellowship; and the University of Melbourne Kathleen Fitzpatrick Visiting Fellowship. At UNSW, she runs the Asia Law & Policy Forum. From 2019-21 she was Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Law. Prior to UNSW, she worked at the National University of Singapore, the International Institute for Asian Studies (Leiden), the University of Melbourne and Monash University. She serves across a range of international, regional and national academic associations, including as co-editor of the International Journal of Law in Context; Book Review co-editor, Law & Society Review (with Amy Cohen, 2025-28); Past President, Asian Studies Association of Australia (2025-26); Board member, Research Committee of the Sociology of Law (RCSL); Editorial Board, Asian Journal of Comparative Law; and Advisory Board of the Indonesian Journal of Socio-legal Studies, and the Asian Journal of Law & Society, among others. Fields: law and society; comparative constitutional law; law and religion; comparative law, particularly Indonesia and Burma/Myanmar Approaches: legal ethnography; sociology of law; historical anthropology

2025, The Palimpsest Constitution: The Social Life of Constitutions in Myanmar (OUP, 2025) 2023, Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia (OUP 2023)