Gillian Cowlishaw FASSA (née Jessup; born 1934) is a New Zealand-born anthropologist, known for her ethnographic research on Indigenous Australians.
Cowlishaw was born Gillian Jessup in 1934 in the rural area of Otakiri, near Edgecumbe in the Bay of Plenty Region, New Zealand,[1] and grew up on her parents' dairy farm with three siblings.
[1][3] Cowlishaw's ethnographic research with Aboriginal Australians investigates local cultures, histories, and the relationship between settler colonialists and Indigenous peoples.
[1] Cowlishaw's 2004 book Blackfellas, Whitefellas and the Hidden Injuries of Race won the New South Wales Premier's Award:, the Gleebooks Prize for Critical Writing in 2005.
[1] She used the fellowship to research urban Aboriginal people in Sydney's western suburbs.