Research
Monika is a writer and researcher. She focuses her work on communities that have been segregated and marginalised, particularly those of industrial towns and their past heritage. She has worked across Australia and Europe to explore how these communities flourish in their abject margins into self-sustaining and socially cohesive communities.
As a strategic and critical thinker, Monika advocates to create greater understanding of people and communities and to give voice to those that aren’t being heard. She is presenting on innovative industrial heritage interpretation at an international congress in Montreal in 2022 and wrote the never before told story of the community once living on Melbourne’s first sewerage farm, The faraway land of the house and two cows.
State Research Farm
Monika is undertaking new research of the once critical public asset, the State Research Farm in Werribee, Australia. She is working with a team to uncover the history, personalities and science of the community of workers once living on the State Research Farm through interview, images, memoir, books and film. The State Research Farm boosted agricultural and livestock research, experimentation and implementation Australia-wide. The site is of state heritage significance for scientific research and advancement, and illustrates a change from European agricultural practices to those specific to Australia's climate and conditions.
For more information, stories and archival photos, please visit the State Research Farm Project.
The jewel falls from the crown
Monika is progressing her research on the community once living on the Metropolitan Sewerage Farm. She is exploring the turbulent period when the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works became Melbourne Water and has begun writing the sequel book to The faraway land of the house and two cows.
A new understanding of abject communities through sewerage ghost towns
Monika uncovered new understandings of sewerage ghost towns in previous research: how the past communities of these now abandoned towns in the industry of sewage treatment flourished in the segregated margins of society, and what happened once these communities disbanded. It looked at communities once living on and beside sewerage works around the world. Monika published her scholarly findings and wrote The faraway land of the house and two cows as a literary nonfiction book, about a tight-knit community living alongside sewage lagoons and land and grass filtration paddocks being watered 24 hours a day with Melbourne’s sewage.
For more information, stories and archival photos, please visit the Metropolitan Sewerage Farm.
Social research
Monika has developed methodologies and delivered a range of social research and social impact assessments in projects related to waterways, the heritage listed Main Outfall Sewer, landfills, waste, community disadvantage and of entrenched perceptions around senior secondary schooling in Victoria. She has created and implemented a range of change programs to shift perceptions.
Published research
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A New Understanding of Abject Communities through Sewerage Ghost Towns
Monika Schott PhD, PhD Thesis, Deakin University, Melbourne 2019
This research uncovers new understandings of sewerage ghost towns, how their past communities flourished in the segregated margins of society, and what happens once these communities disband. It looks at communities once living on and beside sewerage works around the world.