Professor Donna Baines

BSW, MSW, PhD
Honorary Professor
Phone
Fax
+61 2 9351 2606
Building/Room
Education Building A35 / 330
The University of Sydney
Donna Baines is a professor in the University of British Columbia’s School of Social Work, which she joined in July of 2019 with an enthusiasm for its commitment to social justice and an ethic of care. Professor Baines previously (2015–2019) served as the chair of Social Work at The University of Sydney, prior to which she held professorial appointments at Dalhousie and McMaster universities. Professor Baines’s research focuses on paid and unpaid work, anti-oppressive/critical social work theory and practice, and social policy and austerity. She has collaborated extensively with research projects in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Scotland, and is currently involved in a number of research collaborations, including as Primary Investigator on a University of Sydney SSHRC Insight Grant and as a co-investigator two others. 
  • Editor, Social Work & Policy Studies: Social Justice, Practice and Theory
  • International Editor, Work in a Global Society, 2020­–ongoing
  • Member, Editorial Board, Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, 2018–ongoing
  • Member, Editorial Board, Work, Employment Relations, Organisational Studies, Human Resource Management, Book and Monograph Series, Springer Publishing, 2015–ongoing
  • Member, International Advisory Board, Critical Social Policy, 2012–ongoing
  • Member, Editorial Advisory Board, New Zealand Sociology, 2017–ongoing

Books
  • Noble, C., Rasool, S. Smith, L., Munoz, G. and Baines, D. (2024) (eds) International Handbook of Feminism in Social Work. London: Routledge.
  • Baines, D., Clark, N., and Bennett, B. (2023) (Eds.) Anti-Oppressive Social Work. Rethinking Theory and Practice. 4th edition. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.
  • Baines, D., and Cunningham, I. (Eds.) (2021) Working in the Context of Austerity: Challenges and Struggles. Bristol: Bristol University Press.
  • Baines, D., Bennett, B., Goodwin, S., and Rawsthorne, M. (eds). (2019). Working Across Difference and Inequity in Social Work and Policy Studies. London: Palgrave/MacMillan.

Book chapters
  • Baines, D. (2024) “'A Real Spark': resistance in nonprofit care work in the context of neoliberalism and a crisis in public health". In Coule, T., Eikenberry, A. and Mirabella, R. (eds) The Handbook of Critical Perspectives on Nonprofit Organizing and Voluntary Action: Concepts, Applications and Future Directions (pp. 311-322) Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
  • Baines, D. (2024) Feminized Care Work, Social Work and Resistance in the Context of Late Neoliberalism. In Noble, C., Rasool, S. Smith, L., Munoz, G. and Baines, D. (eds) Routledge International Handbook of Feminism in Social Work. (p. 394-403) London: Routledge.
  • Baines, D. (2022) “Neoliberalism, Austerity and the Crises in Care Work”. In Wells, D,. and Peters, J. (Eds) Canadian Labour Policy and Politics: Inequality and Alternatives. Vancouver:  University of British Columba Press. 
  • Baines, D. and Mapedzahama, V. (2021) “White Fragility, Populism, Xenophobia and Late Neoliberalism.” In Noble, C., and Ottman, G. (Eds.). The Challenge of Right-wing Nationalist Populism for Social Work: A Hu. London: Routledge.

Journal articles
  • Baines, D. and Brown, C. (2025) “We are limited by the structures we work in: neoliberalism, biomedicalism, and the social justice dilemma in social work." Studies in Political Economy Special Edition, 106.1. https://doi.org/10.1080/07078552.2025.2475663
  • Baines, D., Bennett, B. and Urban, K. (2024) "Rankings, Ruling and Reproducing Inequities:  recent social work writing on the Top 100 Scholars." Journal of Progressive Human Services 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/10428232.2024.2434788
  • Baines, D. Braedley, S., Agnotes, G., Bannerji, A., Chakkour, E., Cote Boucher, K., Daly, T., Glasdam, S., Hillier, S., Jacobsen, F., MacDonald, M., and Stillwell, C. (2024) "But Where’s the Body? Bodies, Time, Money, and the Political Economy of Post-Pandemic Field Research." Qualitative Research. 14687941241264473.
  • Baines, D., Braedley, S. and Daly, T. (2024) "Decent care work: politics, policy, and resistance." Studies in Political Economy 105(3), 175–178. https://doi.org/10.1080/07078552.2024.2422682
  • Cox, K., Baines, D., Joy, E. and Beddoe, E. (2024) "Resistance and rangatiratanga in a time of political change." Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work 36 (4): 1-11. https://anzswjournal.nz/anzsw/issue/view/77
  • Silan, W., Baines, D., & Wang, F. (2024). "Decolonizing decolonization projects: neoliberalism, Indigenous services, and Indigenous strategic change in Taiwan and Canada." Globalizations, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2024.2397236
  • Baines, D., Braedley, S., Daly, T., Hillier, S. and Cabahug, F. (2024). "Low Barrier, Harm Reduction and Housing for Older People in the Opiate Crisis: meeting people where they are. Critical and Radical Social Work https://doi.org/10.1332/20498608Y2024D000000031
  • Baines, D., Brown, C. & Cabahug, F. (2024). "The Shifting Labour Process in Professional Care: recreating dominance and the managerialised mental health social worker." The British Journal of Social Work 1 (54), 475–493.
  • Baines, D. (2021). “Soft cops or social justice activists: social work’s relationship to the state in the context of BLM and Neoliberalism”. The British Journal of Social Work. 52 (5), 2984–3002, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcab200
  • Baines, D., Charlesworth, C. and Dulhunty, A. (2021) “Relationship-based care, austerity and aged care. Work, Employment and Society. 1-17. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0950017020980985.
  • Baines, D. and Daly, T. (2021) “Borrowed time and solidarity: the multi-scalar politics of time and gendered care work. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society. 28, 2, Summer, 385–404, https://doi.org/10.1093/sp/jxz017
  • Baines, D, Cunningham, I., Kgaphola, I. and Mthembu, S. (2020) “Nonprofit care work as social glue: creating and sustaining social reproduction in the context of austerity/late neoliberalism. Affilia, 35(4), 449–465. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886109920906787.
  • Baines, D. and Kgaphola, I. (2019) “Precarious care: international comparisons of nonprofit social service work”. Women’s Studies International Forum. 74: 210-217. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277539518305405.
Emancipatory Dialogue: Indigenous and Anti-Oppressive Perspectives, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant, $325,000. Principal Investigator. 

Impact of Neoliberalism on Social Justice Approaches to Mental Health in Social Work, SSHRC Insight Grant, $80,000, Co-investigator. 

Imagining Ageing: Communities within Communities, SSHRC Partnership Grant, $4.5mil, Co-investigator. 
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