Rate My Professor Cary Bennett

Cary Bennett is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of New England, Australia, within the Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Education and previously affiliated with the School of Behavioural, Cognitive and Social Sciences. He holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Newcastle and was previously a lecturer at the University of Newcastle. Bennett's research employs a Foucauldian perspective to explore how understandings of drugs, criminality, health, illness, mental health, and social inequality are shaped by exclusionary social discourses and practices. His academic interests include drugs and drug use in society, health and illness, social aspects of HIV/AIDS, global development, education, popular music, and sexuality in aged care.

Bennett has published extensively on recreational drug use, trafficking, treatment, education, HIV/AIDS policy, assessment practices, and intimacy in residential aged care. Key publications include 'Challenges facing regional live music venues: A case study of venues in Armidale, NSW' (Popular Music, 2020), 'Baby boomers’ attitudes to maintaining sexual and intimate relationships in long-term care' (Australasian Journal on Ageing, 2020), 'Drugs, moral panics and the dispositive' (Journal of Sociology, 2018), 'Assessment rubrics: thinking inside the boxes' (Learning and Teaching, 2016), 'School-based drug education: the shaping of subjectivities' (History of Education Review, 2014), 'Methadone Maintenance Treatment: Disciplining the 'Addict'' (Health & History, 2011), and 'The emergence of Australia's national campaign against drug abuse: a case-study in the politics of drug control' (Journal of Australian Studies, 2008). He has presented research seminars at the University of New England, including 'Polymorphous anxieties and perverse pleasures: Drugs, moral panics and the dispositive' (2016) and 'Assessment Rubrics: Thinking inside the boxes' (2014). Bennett's work contributes to sociological understandings of drug policy, health discourses, and social issues in Australia.