Robert Van Krieken

Robert Van Krieken is Emeritus Professor of Sociology in the Discipline of Sociology and Criminology, School of Social and Political Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney. He earned a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Sociology and a PhD in 1977 from the University of New South Wales, along with an LLB in 2003 from the University of Sydney. Of Dutch parentage, he was born in Hong Kong, where he completed primary school, before relocating to Sydney in 1967. Van Krieken began his academic career at the University of Sydney in 1979, teaching social theory in the Department of Social Work. He played a pivotal role in developing the sociology program during the 1990s, contributed to the core of the Department of Sociology and Social Policy from 2001, and established the socio-legal studies program. He served as Professor of Sociology at University College Dublin from 2009 to 2011 and holds adjunct professorships at University College Dublin and the University of Tasmania. In 2016, he was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. He is recognized as a key researcher in the Law, Justice, Trauma and Death thematic cluster.

Van Krieken's research focuses on process sociology, particularly Norbert Elias's theories of civilization and decivilization, the sociology of childhood and child welfare, law and society, cultural genocide, and celebrity society. His influential publications include the monograph Norbert Elias (Routledge, 2005), Children and the State: Social Control and the Formation of Australian Child Welfare (Allen & Unwin, 1992), Celebrity Society (Routledge, 2012), the co-authored textbook Sociology: Themes and Perspectives (Pearson, 2000), and articles such as 'The barbarism of civilization: cultural genocide and the “stolen generations”' (British Journal of Sociology, 1999), 'Rethinking cultural genocide: Aboriginal child removal and settler-colonial state formation' (Oceania, 2004), and 'The “best interests of the child” and parental separation: on the “civilizing of parents”' (Modern Law Review, 2005). His scholarship has significantly impacted understandings of Australian Indigenous child removal policies, self-formation, and modernity. Van Krieken has held leadership positions in the International Sociological Association, including executive committee member from 2006 to 2010 and vice-president for finance and membership from 2010 to 2014. He serves on the editorial board of Contemporary Sociology and has previously been on the boards of Law & Social Inquiry and Childhood.

Professional Email: robert.van.krieken@sydney.edu.au