Associate Professor Benito Cao

Associate Professor Benito Cao
 Position Associate Prof/Reader
 Org Unit School of Social Sciences
 Email benito.cao@adelaide.edu.au
 Telephone +61 8 8313 5745
 Location Floor/Room 4 ,  Napier ,   North Terrace
  • Biography/ Background

    I was born in Galicia, a region of Spain situated on the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula. I studied politics at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain), and moved to Adelaide in 1996, where I completed Honours in 1998 and graduated as Doctor of Philosophy in 2008. I have been teaching politics at the University of Adelaide since 2002. I love going to the cinema and the theatre, and all things sports related. I watch films and go to plays as often as possible, and I played futsal every week for over a decade in a team called McHever. My futsal days came to an end following a knee injury in 2018. I am now back into playing lawn bowls at Millswood Bowling Club. I began playing lawn bowls in the late 1990s, winning the Night Owls competition in 2002 and 2010 with a team called Whatever. I have been playing pennants for the club since 2020. I also like watching good television. Some of my favourite programs are: Four Corners, Foreign Correspondent, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and Have You Been Paying Attention? Some of my favourite series are: Yes Minister, Black Adder, Fawlty Towers, Red Dwarf, Seinfeld, Boston Legal, American Dad, The Sopranos, The IT Crowd, Breaking Bad, True Blood, The Bridge, The Killing, Nurse Jackie, The Good Wife, The Good Fight, Big Little Lies, UnREAL, Chernobyl, and Black Mirror. The best ever tv series: The Wire. I am still catching up on Game of Thrones, Better Call Saul, Ozark, Westworld, and The Walking Dead. I love food, wine, sport and cinema, including the Adelaide Cinemateque and the Adelaide Film Festival.

  • Qualifications

    • Doctor of Philosophy (2008) - The University of Adelaide (Australia)

    Doctoral Thesis: “White Hegemony in the Land of Carnival:

    The (Apparent) Paradox of Racism and Hybridity in Brazil”.

     

    • Bachelor of Arts [Honours - First Class] (1998) - The University of Adelaide (Australia)

    Honours Thesis: “Africa Lost in Transit:

    The Social Imaginary of Africa in Current Western Cinema”.

     

    • Bachelor of Arts (1996) - The University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain)
  • Awards & Achievements

    2020 Stephen Cole the Elder Award for Excellence in Teaching & Support for Learning (The University of Adelaide)

    2020 Special Commendation - COVID 19 Emergency Teaching Response (The University of Adelaide)

    2020 Faculty Prize for Excellence in Teaching [Continuing] (Faculty of Arts - The University of Adelaide)

    2020 Honorary Life Membership - Politics and International Relations Association (The University of Adelaide)

    2019 Student-Led Excellence in Teaching Award (Adelaide University Union - The University of Adelaide) 

    2016 Beacon Commendation for the Enhancement and Innovation of Student Learning (The University of Adelaide)

    2016 Executive Dean's Prize for Excellence in Teaching (Faculty of Arts - The University of Adelaide)

    2016 Faculty Prize for Excellence in Teaching [Continuing] (Faculty of Arts - The University of Adelaide)

    2013 Nominee to The Unijobs Lecturer of the Year Award: 3rd Top Lecturer from The University of Adelaide

    2012 Nominee to The Unijobs Lecturer of the Year Award: 1st Top Lecturer from The University of Adelaide

    2011 Executive Dean's Prize for Excellence in Teaching (HUMSS Faculty - The University of Adelaide)

    2011 Nominee to The Unijobs Lecturer of the Year Award: 6th Top Lecturer from The University of Adelaide

    2010 Faculty Prize for Excellence in Teaching [Early Career] (HUMSS Faculty - The University of Adelaide)

    2010 Nominee to The Unijobs Lecturer of the Year Award: 6th Top Lecturer from The University of Adelaide

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    2001 DR Stranks Postgraduate Travelling Fellowship (The University of Adelaide, Australia)

    1998-2001 University of Adelaide Scholarship (The University of Adelaide, Australia)

    1995-1996 Scholarship Award for Departmental Collaboration (Ministry of Education and Science, Spain)

     

  • Teaching Interests

    I have a special interest in the study and teaching of Politics, but I am interested in all fields of Social Sciences and the Humanities.

     

    I have been teaching since 2002. I began as a tutor at the University of Adelaide but have also worked also at UniSA and Flinders University. Over the years I have taught many courses: Introduction to International Politics, Introduction to Comparative Politics, The Comparative Politics of Leadership, The State of the World, Post-Cold War International Relations, Politics, Power & Popular CultureThe Ethics of War and Peace, Citizenship and Globalisation, Europe Today: Politics, Identity, Conflict, and Global Politics at the University of Adelaide; Governance and Citizenship in Australia, Political Economy and Social Policy, Society and Culture, Studies in Family, The Individual in Society, and Social Analysis and the Human Services at the University of South Australia; and Social Policy at Flinders University. The highlight of my teaching career came in 2020, when I had the honour and the pleasure to interview Julia Gillard in the context of the first year course Introduction to Global Politics. I am also very happy to see nine student essays from Global Environmental Politics (a course I taught in 2020) constitute the inaugural issue of Illustratio, the journal of the Politics and International Relations Association (PIRA).

     

    I have also given guest lectures on topics such as: identity politics, media politics, social work and NGOs, cinematic representations of Africa, corporate social responsibility, environmental citizenship, and politics in Brazil.

     

    This year (2023) I will be teaching The Ethics of War and Peace (Semester 1) and Introduction to Global Politics (Semester 2). Hopefully, I will also be conducting a study tour to Singapore ("Inside Singapore: History, Politics, Identity") in Term 4 (late November - early December).

  • Research Interests

    • Citizenship, particularly Environmental Citizenship;
    • Nation and State, Nationalism, and Multiculturalism;
    • Racism, Ethnic Relations, and the Politics of Identity;
    • Power, Politics and Popular Culture (Cultural Studies);
    • Development, Global Governance and Democratisation;
    • Innovation in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. 
  • Publications

    Books

    Environment and Citizenship London and New York: Routledge (2015)

     

    Edited Books

     

    Environmental Citizenship in the Indian Ocean Region. London and New York: Routledge (2021)

     

    Book Chapters

     

    Consuming Environmental Citizenship, or The Production of Neoliberal Green Citizens. In Jonathon Louth and Martin Potter (eds.), Edges of Identity: The Production of Neoliberal Subjectivities. Chester: Chester University Press (2017), pp. 25-51.

     

    Dam-nation: The struggle over the future of the Brazilian Amazon. In Timothy Doyle and Sherilyn MacGregor (eds.), Environmental Movements around the World. Oxford: Praeger (2014), Vol. I, pp. 49-75.

     

    Environment and Citizenship: Rethinking What It Means to Be a Citizen in the 21st Century. In James Arvanitakis and Ingrid Matthews (eds.), The Citizen in the 21st Century. Inter-Disciplinary Press (2013), pp. 155-166. 

     

    Thinking critically about critical thinking in the first-year experience. [co-authored with Christine Beasley] In Heather Brook, Deane Fergie, Michael Maeorg and Dee Michell (eds.), Universities in Transition: Forefrounding Social Contexts of Knowledge in the First Year Experience. Adelaide: The University of Adelaide Press (2014), pp. 205-227.

     

    Descubrimiento como Ideología: El Descubrimiento de Asia en el Humanismo Portugués. [Discovery as Ideology: The Discovery of Asia in Portuguese Humanism] In Colóquio Internacional: O Humanismo Latino e as Culturas do Extremo Oriente. Treviso: Fondazione Cassamarca (2006), pp. 33-53. [published in Spanish]

     

    Journal Articles

    Environmental citizenship in the Indian Ocean Region, Journal of the Indian Ocean Region, Vol. 16, No. 1 (2020), pp. 1-5.

    Race, politics and education in Brazil, Social Identities, Vol. 23, No. 4 (2017), pp. 493-499.

    Identity and Community in the Asia-Pacific, Journal of the Indian Ocean Region, Vol. 13, No. 3 (2017), pp. 355-359.

    Women's empowerment in the Global South, Journal of the Indian Ocean Region, Vol. 13, No. 1 (2017), pp. 119-124.

    Beyond Empire: Australian cinematic identity in the twenty-first century, Studies in Australasian Cinema, Vol. 6, No. 3 (2012), pp. 239-250.

    Identity and Citizenship, Social Identities, Vol.18, No. 3 (2012), pp. 373-379.

    Transforming first-year university Politics students into critical thinkers, ergo: The Journal of the Education Research Group of Adelaide, Vol. 2, No. 3 (2012), pp. 41-52. [with Christine Beasley]

    Race Matters in Brazil, Social Identities, Vol.17, No. 5 (2011), pp. 709-716.

    White Hegemony in the (Re)Birth of Brazil, Humanities Research, Vol.27, No. 1 (2011), pp. 35-57.

     

    Conference Papers

     

    Africa Lost in Transit: The Representation of Africa in European Imagination. In Actas del Congreso Africa Camina. Barcelona: LISA & Generalitat de Catalunya (2006). [published in cd-rom]

  • Professional Associations

    • The Adelaide Education Academy
    • AIIA (Australian Institute of International Affairs)
    • NTEU (National Tertiary Education Industry Union)
    • HERGA (Higher Education Research Group of Adelaide)
    • CCDHR (Centre for Citizenship, Development & Human Rights)
    • AILASA (Association of Iberian & Latin American Studies of Australasia)
  • Community Engagement

    I was an active member of the Goodwood Community Bank Steering Committee that led to the establishment of a community bank in Goodwood (City of Unley, Adelaide) in 2004. The closing of the last of three major-bank branches made people in the community very upset and opened the way for the establishment of a community bank. It took lots of hours of hard community work to get the project off the ground, but we got there in the end, and now the residents of Goodwood not only have a bank in the area … we have our own local community bank.

    This is the link to the homepage of the Goodwood Community Bank Branch:

    http://www.bendigobank.com.au/public/community/our-branches/goodwood

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Entry last updated: Saturday, 28 Jan 2023

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