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