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Professor, Director, Open Door: Understanding and Supporting Service Personnel and their Families, Flinders University

Ben is the Director of the Open Door: Understanding and Supporting Service Personnel and their Families research initiative in the College of Education, Psychology, and Social Work. Open Door is an Australasian research hub that brings together veterans, scholars, and practitioners together around key research, service provision, and policy/legislation initiatives. Open Door is connected to other veteran research hubs across the five-eye nations.

Ben is the co-Deputy Director of Flinders Institute for Mental Health and Wellbeing

As a Veteran, Ben's research is focused on the health and wellbeing of serving personnel and Veterans. He conducts sociological and criminological research on the ADF and DVA including institutional abuse in the ADF, veteran suicide, veterans in corrections and veteran transition into higher education.

Ben writes about the cultural history of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). Of particular interest is military culture and crime and the military. He is currently Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council Grant titled "Institutional Abuse and Organisational Reform within the ADF (1969-). Ben has led national studies on how effective tertiary education is as a transition pathway and the ways universities understand veterans and govern their place in the university. He has also led studies male veteran suiice and incarcerated veterans. Ben is conducting research for the Royal Commission on Defence and Veteran Suicide. Ben is also leading an ARC Discovery grant on the social and historical dimensions of veteran suiice from 1914 until the present.

Experience

  • 2003–present
    Academic , Flinders University
  • 2020–present
    Director , Open Door: Understanding and Supporting Service Personnel and their Families
  • 1995–1999
    Policy Officer, SA Health Commission and DECS
  • 1987–1992
    Private Infantry and Corporal MP, Australian Regular Army

Education

  • 2007 
    Flinders University, Graduate Certificate in Public Policy
  • 2002 
    Flinders University, PhD Sociology
  • 1997 
    Flinders University, BA Hons

Publications

  • 2013
    Brotherhood: Homosociality, Totality and Military Subjectivity, Australian Feminist Studies Journal
  • 2013
    What Does the White Man Want? What Australian Masculinities and Aboriginal Reconciliation, Lambert Publishing
  • 2012
    Sociology, the Military and Civil-Military Relations: an under-explored field, TASA
  • 2012
    The Pact: Sex Skype and the Bonds of Men, Citizenship and Globalisation Research Papers
  • 2011
    Cultural Camouflage: The ADF on Trouble in the Ranks, TASA
  • 2009
    Camouflage: how the visual arts and sociology make sense of the military, TASA
  • 2007
    Culture and Education, Pearson Australia
  • 2007
    Whose Reconciliation? Conservative white Australian masculinities and their struggle for white Australia, Intersections: Gender, Race and Ethnicity in Australasian Studies
  • 2005
    (Un)masking hegemony: militarism, white masculinity and the logic of contemporary empire, International Journal of Critical Psychology
  • 2004
    What is whiteness? Authenticity, dominance, identity, Placing Race and Locating Whiteness
  • 2004
    Mogan Hunts and Pig Nights: The Making of the Arms Corps Soldier, TASA
  • 2002
    What does the white man want?: white masculinities and aboriginal reconciliation, Manning the Millennium

Grants and Contracts

  • 2023
    Veteran Suicide: Investigating the Social and Historical Dimensions
    Role:
    CI
    Funding Source:
    ARC
  • 2018
    Institutional abuse and organisational reform in the ADF
    Role:
    CI
    Funding Source:
    ARC

Professional Memberships

  • Royal Australian Regiment SA
  • Australian Peacekeepers and Peacekeeping Veterans Association
  • Military Police Assocition Australia
  • Australian Sociological Association
  • Australian History Association

Research Areas

  • Sociology (1608)
  • Defence Studies (160604)
  • Culture, Gender, Sexuality (200205)

Honours

Defence Services Medal