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Associate Professor Vaughan Higgins
BA (Hons), PhD
Position Associate Professor in Sociology
Location School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga
Phone 02 6933 4514
Fax 02 6933 2792
Email vhiggins@csu.edu.au
Career Brief
With a background in sociology, Associate Professor Vaughan Higgins has a broad interest in how agricultural policy and programmes are implemented on the ground, and the ways in which landholders respond to, negotiate or resist attempts to change their practices. His current work is aimed at gaining an improved understanding of the implications of market and voluntary incentives for the adoption of more sustainable farming practices. Vaughan is also leading the development of a project which seeks to examine how Australian governments, commodity sectors and farmers manage biosecurity threats associated with globalisation, climate change and population encroachment on farming areas, and the consequences for the future security of food production in Australia.
Research and Teaching
Research
- Sustainable Farming in Australia: Market Instruments for Improved Land Management (ARC Discovery project, 2010-12)
- Securing Future Food Production in Australia: Managing Biosecurity Threats in a Changing World
Teaching
- SOC108 – Sociology of Health and Health Care
- SSC501 – Science and Society
- SOC411 – Advanced Sociological Theory
Professional Links
- Member – The Australian Sociological Association (since 2008).
- Elected representative (Australia and Oceania) – International Rural Sociology Association
- Member – ILWS
Interests
- Governance of the agriculture and food sectors
- Market-based instruments and sustainable farming
- Agri-food standards
- Biosecurity
- Sociology of science and technology
- Medical sociology.
Selected Publications
Dibden J, Higgins V and Cocklin C (2011). Harmonising the governance of farming risks: the regulation and contestation of agricultural biosecurity and biotechnology in Australia. Australian Geographer 42(2), 105-122.
Higgins V and Dibden J (2011). Biosecurity, trade liberalisation and the (anti)politics of risk analysis: the Australia-New Zealand apples dispute. Environment and Planning A 43, 393-409.
Higgins V, Dibden J and Cocklin C (2010). Adapting standards: the case of environmental management systems in Australia. In V Higgins and W Larner (eds), Calculating the Social: Standards and the Reconfiguration of Governing, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan: 167-184.
Higgins V, Dibden J and Cocklin C (2008). Neoliberalism and natural resource management: agri-environmental standards and the governing of farming practices. Geoforum 39, 1776-1785.
Lockie S and Higgins V (2007). Roll-out neoliberalism and hybrid practices of governing in Australian agri-environmental governance. Journal of Rural Studies 23: 1-11.