Rate My Professor Chris Horsell

Dr. Chris Horsell serves as a Lecturer in the School of Social Work and Social Care within the College of Education, Behavioural and Social Sciences at Adelaide University. He is eligible to supervise Masters and PhD students as a co-supervisor. Horsell holds a Doctor of Philosophy conferred in 2014 from Flinders University for his thesis on Foucault, social policy, and homelessness. His earlier qualifications include a BA (Hons), MEd, and BSocAdmin. Prior to his current role, he was a PhD candidate at Flinders University in the School of Social and Policy Studies and held positions at the University of South Australia, including in the School of Psychology, Social Work and Social Policy and UniSA Justice and Society. Before entering academia, Horsell worked as a social worker with government and non-government homelessness agencies.

Horsell's research interests include homelessness, social policy, utopian thinking in social work, recognition in social work, intersectionality and homelessness, hope in social work, housing and homelessness law, and disability policy, with a focus on the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme. His specializations encompass social work and homelessness, social policy responses to homelessness, critical policy analysis, Foucauldian perspectives on homelessness and social exclusion, neoliberal contexts in social work education and practicum, and utopian method and social change. He has an extensive publication record demonstrating his influence in the field. Key books authored or co-authored are Utopian Thinking and Social Work (Routledge, 2025), Radical Hope in Social Work (Routledge, 2026, with C. Zufferey), and The Complexities of Home in Social Work (Routledge, 2022, with C. Zufferey et al.). Notable journal articles include 'Challenging the neoliberal paradigm: homelessness, displacement and the need for care' (Australian Social Work, 2024), 'Utopian thinking, social work and homelessness: critiquing ideas regarding welfare dependence' (Australian Social Work, 2024), 'Recognition, social work and homelessness' (International Social Work, 2023), 'Problematising disability: a critical policy analysis of the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme' (Australian Social Work, 2020), 'A politics of compassion: informing a new social policy for homelessness?' (International Social Work, 2017), 'Homelessness, social policy and difference' (Advances in Social Work & Welfare Education, 2013), and 'Homelessness and social exclusion: A Foucauldian perspective for social workers' (Australian Social Work, 2006). Horsell has also contributed numerous book chapters, such as those in Social Work in the Shadow of the Law (Federation Press, 2026) and Overlapping Inequalities in the Welfare State (Springer, 2024).