James Jupp AM (23 August 1932 – 11 April 2022) was a British-Australian political scientist and author. He was Director of the Centre for Immigration and Multicultural Studies in the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University and an adjunct professor of the RMIT University in Melbourne. He was an Australian citizen and resident of Canberra.

Early life and career

James Jupp was born in Croydon, England, and was educated at the London School of Economics between 1951 and 1956. He held teaching posts in Political Science at the University of Melbourne, the University of York (England), the University of Waterloo (Canada) and the University of Canberra. His Doctorate of Philosophy, on the political development of Sri Lanka, was granted by the University of London in 1975 and published as Sri Lanka: Third World Democracy in 1978. In 1989 he was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and was its Executive Director from 1992 until 1995. Jupp was a member of the Advisory Council on Multicultural Affairs, chairman of the ACT Multicultural Advisory Council and of the ACT Reference Group of the Bureau of Immigration, Multicultural and Population Research. He was a member of the Planning and Steering Committees for the Global Cultural Diversity conference held in Sydney in April 1995 and chairman of the Review of Migrant and Multicultural Programmes and Services, which presented its report Don't Settle for Less, to the Minister for Immigration in August, 1986. On Australia Day 2004 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for "service to the development of public policy in relation to immigration and multiculturalism, to education, and to the recording of Australian history". In 2010 Jupp attracted considerable criticism over controversial comments he made to the effect that ANZAC Day was becoming less relevant in Australian culture. Jupp's opinion as an Australian immigration expert continues to be sought (in 2016 he was referred to as "one of Australia's eminent scholars on immigration" ).

Personal life and death

Jupp married political scientist Marian Sawer in 1978, with whom he had one daughter. Jupp died in Canberra on 11 April 2022, at the age of 89.

Publications

Jupp published widely on immigration and multicultural affairs and he was General Editor of the Bicentennial Encyclopedia of the Australian People from 1984 until its publication as The Australian People in September, 1988 and of the second edition published for the Centenary of Federation in 2001.