Associate Professor Sally Babidge
Director, Postgraduate Development Practice
Director, Bachelor of Social Science
Researcher biography
I am a sociocultural anthropologist in the School of Social Science at the University of Queensland and current (2021-present) Director of the Master of Development Practice program. My research is focussed on the social and cultural dimensions of ecological and economic change, especially that driven by the extractives industry and experienced by Indigenous Peoples. Current research is engaged in the epistemological, political and practical problems of 'seeing' harms from large scale mining projects, especially lithium in the 'critical minerals' extraction boom (see a recent FILM made with research collaborators), and in relation to groundwater and associated community futures. Ethnographic methodologies and theory that rely on sustained, engaged, and ethical relationships characterise my practice in Australia and Chile and resulting publications.
I design courses for and teach in the undergraduate major in anthropology, as well as for multidisciplinary areas of teaching in theory and methodology for Humanities and Social Science Faculty Honours students and in program design for the Development Practice students. HDR students from anthropology and other social science backgrounds undertake research under my supervision on questions associated with ecological futures, especially water, but also territorial relations, and in areas of political anthropology, and decolonial and feminist theory and method.
Publications
Books
Babidge, Sally (2025). Groundwater politics: Advanced extractivism and slow resistance. Berghahn Books. doi: 10.3167/9781805398820
Babidge, Sally (2010). Aboriginal family and the state. Farnham, U.K.: Ashgate.
Babidge, Sally (2007). Written True Not Gammon: A history of Aboriginal Charters Towers. Thuringowa, Qld: Black Ink Press.
Book Chapters
Babidge, Sally (2021). Water Ownership and Governance. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology. (pp. 1-1) Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.013.471
Pinner, Breanna, Ross, Helen, Jones, Natalie, Babidge, Sally, Shaw, Sylvie, Witt, Katherine and Rissik, David (2019). A custodial ethic: Indigenous values towards water in Moreton Bay and catchments. Moreton Bay Quandamooka and catchment: past, present and future. (pp. 29-44) edited by Ian R. Tibbetts, Peter C. Rothlisberg, David T. Neil, Tamara A. Homburg, David T. Brewer and Angela H. Arthington. Brisbane, QLD, Australia: Moreton Bay Foundation.
Babidge, Sally (2015). Who belongs in the nation?. Courting Blakness: recalibrating knowledge in the sandstone university. (pp. 112-117) edited by Fiona Foley, Louise Martin-Chew and Fiona Nicoll. St Lucia, QLD, Australia: University of Queensland Press.
Babidge, Sally (2011). The proof of native title connection in absentia. Unsettling anthropology: The demands of native title on worn concepts and changing lives. (pp. 82-99) edited by Toni Bauman and Gaynor Macdonald. Canberra, ACT, Australia: AIATSIS.
Babidge, Sally and Dressler, Wolfram (2010). Identity, difference, and development. The International Studies encyclopedia. (pp. 3576-3594) edited by Robert A. Denemark. Chichester, West Sussex, United Kingdom: Wiley-Blackwell. doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.23
Babidge, S. (2008). Death, family and disrespect in a northern Queensland town. Mortality, Mourning and Mortuary Practices in Indigenous Australia. (pp. 137-152) edited by K. Glaskin, M. Tonkinson, Y. Musharbash and V. Burbank. Surrey UK: Ashgate. doi: 10.4324/9781315248646-16
Journal Articles
Babidge, Sally and Mimica, Jadran (2024). Editorial. Oceania, 94 (1), 2-2. doi: 10.1002/ocea.5394
Manning, Rebekah and Babidge, Sally (2024). Undocumented: Queensland’s domestic service stories as traces in pastoral station records. Aboriginal History Journal, 47, 87-109. doi: 10.22459/AH.47.2023.04
Babidge, Sally (2023). Water Lore: Practice, Place, Poetics. By CamilleRoulière & ClaudiaEgerer. London, UK and New York, NY, USA: Earthscan from Routledge. 2022. Pp: xxi + 261. Price: A$75.99. Oceania, 93 (3), 396-397. doi: 10.1002/ocea.5385
Babidge, Sally, Eickelkamp, Ute and Connor, Linda (2023). Water futures in Australia: materialities, temporalities, imaginaries. Oceania, 93 (3), 196-215. doi: 10.1002/ocea.5380
Fensham, Roderick J., Adinehvand, Rouhollah, Babidge, Sally, Cantonati, Marco, Currell, Matthew, Daniele, Linda, Elci, Alper, Galassi, Diana M. P., de la Hera Portillo, África, Hamad, Salah, Han, Dongmei, Jawadi, Hussain Ali, Jotheri, Jaafar, Laffineur, Boris, Mohammad, Alsharifa Hind, Naqinezhad, Alireza, Navidtalab, Amin, Nicoll, Kathleen, Odeh, Taleb, Re, Viviana, Sanjuan, Bernard, Souza, Valeria, Stevens, Lawrence E., Tekere, Memory, Tshibalo, Ernest, Silcock, Jennifer, Webb, John, van Wyk, Braam, Zamanpoore, Mehrdad and Villholth, Karen G. (2023). Fellowship of the Spring: an initiative to document and protect the world's oases. Science of The Total Environment, 887 163936, 163936. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.163936
O'Faircheallaigh, Ciaran and Babidge, Sally (2023). Negotiated agreements, Indigenous peoples and extractive industry in the Salar de Atacama, Chile: when is an agreement more than a contract?. Development and Change, 54 (3), 641-670. doi: 10.1111/dech.12767
Babidge, Sally, Dothling, Nathália, Thomson, Sarah, Riordan, Tyler, Wissing, Kirsty, Sant'Anna Fernandes, Ainá and Mejía Muñoz, Sara (2023). Affective propositions, the plant turn, and critiques of development. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 34 (1), 30-32. doi: 10.1111/taja.12464
Mejia-Muñoz, Sara and Babidge, Sally (2023). Lithium extractivism: perpetuating historical asymmetries in the ‘Green economy’. Third World Quarterly, 44 (6), 1119-1136. doi: 10.1080/01436597.2023.2176298
Babidge, Sally and Mimica, Jadran (2022). Editorial. Oceania, 92 (3), 244-244. doi: 10.1002/ocea.5355
Babidge, Sally (2022). Review of What Now: Everyday Endurance and Social Intensity in an Australian Aboriginal Community. by Cameo Dalley. New York: Berghahn Books, 2021, 252pp., 25 b&w illustrations, $120 (HB.), ISBN 978‐1‐78920‐885‐6. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 33 (1), 74-76. doi: 10.1111/taja.12405
Babidge, Sally (2021). Letter to the Editor. Oceania, 91 (3), 380-380. doi: 10.1002/ocea.5321
Babidge, Sally (2021). Seeing water slow resistance and the material enigma of extractive effects on society and ecology. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 11 (2), 395-411. doi: 10.1086/715788
Babidge, Sally (2020) Consultation's overburden: Indigenous participation in the extractive industry in the Salar de Atacama, Chile. Transformations, 33 48-63.
Babidge, Sally, Kalazich, Fernanda, Prieto, Manuel and Yager, Karina (2019). 'That's the problem with that lake; it changes sides': mapping extraction and ecological exhaustion in the Atacama. Journal of Political Ecology, 26 (1) 3169, 738-760. doi: 10.2458/v26i1.23169
Babidge, Sally (2019). When the Hills Are Gone: Frac Sand Mining and the Struggle for Community by Thomas W. Pearson Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 2017. 248 pp. American Anthropologist, 122 (1) aman.13363, 184-185. doi: 10.1111/aman.13363
Babidge, Sally (2019). Sustaining ignorance: the uncertainties of groundwater and its extraction in the Salar de Atacama, northern Chile. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 25 (1), 83-102. doi: 10.1111/1467-9655.12965
Babidge, Sally and Bolados, Paola (2018). Neoextractivism and indigenous water ritual in Salar de Atacama, Chile. Latin American Perspectives, 45 (5), 170-185. doi: 10.1177/0094582X18782673
Babidge, Sally and Belfrage, Madeleine (2017). Failing forward: A case study in neoliberalism and abandonment in Calama. Cultural Dynamics, 29 (4), 235-254. doi: 10.1177/0921374017743300
Babidge, Sally (2017). Alchemy in the rainforest. Politics, ecology, and resilience in a New Guinea mining area. Human Ecology, 45 (1), 135-137. doi: 10.1007/s10745-016-9876-z
Garcia, Paola Bolados and Babidge, Sally (2017). Ritualidad y extractivismo. La limpia de canales y las disputas por el agua en el salar de atacama-norte de Chile. Estudios Atacamenos, 2017 (54), 201-216. doi: 10.4067/S0718-10432016005000026
Bolados Garcia, Paola and Babidge, Sally (2017). Ritualidad y extractivismo. La limpia de canales y las disputas por el agua en el
salar de atacama-norte de chile. Estudios Atacamenos (54), 201-216.
Babidge, Sally (2016). State Theory and Andean Politics: New Approaches to the Study of Rule. Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research, 22 (1), 107-109. doi: 10.1080/13260219.2016.1182253
Babidge, Sally (2015). Contested value and an ethics of resources: water, mining and indigenous people in the Atacama Desert, Chile. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 27 (1), 84-103. doi: 10.1111/taja.12139
Babidge, Sally (2015). The problem with 'transparency': moral contests and ethical possibilities in mining impact reporting. Focaal, 73 (73), 70-83. doi: 10.3167/fcl.2015.730106
Babidge, Sally (2014). Where the river ends: contested indigeneity in the Mexican Colorado Delta, by Shaylih Muehlmann. Anthropological Forum, 25 (1), 86-88. doi: 10.1080/00664677.2014.906021
Babidge, Sally (2013). "Socios": the contested morality of "partnerships" in indigenous community-mining company relations, northern Chile. Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, 18 (2), 274-293. doi: 10.1111/jlca.12020
Babidge, Sally (2008). A Cautious Silence: The Politics of Australian Anthropology. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 37 (1), 178-179. doi: 10.1017/s1326011100016215
Babidge, S., Greer, S., Henry, R. and Pam, C. (2007). Management speak: Indigenous knowledge and bureaucratic engagement. Social Analysis, 51 (3), 148-164. doi: 10.3167/sa.2007.510307
Babidge, Sally (2006). Bodily connections and practising relatedness: Aboriginal family and funerals in rural north Queensland. Anthropological Forum, 16 (1), 55-71. doi: 10.1080/00664670600572520
Babidge, S., Cokley, J. D., Gordon, F. and Louw, P. E. (2005). Making media work in space: An interdisciplinary perspective on media and communication requirements for current and future space communities. International Journal of Astrobiology, 4 (3-4), 259-268. doi: 10.1017/S1473550405002788
Conference Papers
Trigger, David, Babidge, Sally, Oertierra, Anna, Ross, Annie and Hafner, Diane (2012). Cars, museums, collecting: objects and the nature of heritage. Australian Anthropological Society Conference, St Lucia, Qld, Australia, 26-29 September 2012. St Lucia, Qld, Australia: Australian Anthropological Society.
Babidge, Sally (2011). Comparing informal and formal community-company relations. First International Seminar on Social Responsibility in Mining (SR Mining 2011), Santiago Chile, 19-21 October 2011. Santiago Chile: Gecamin.
Research Reports
Babidge, Sally (2012). Supplementary material at request of QSNTS, in regard to Anthropological expert report: Kullilli Native Title Claim. Expert Report to Queensland South Native Title Services Aboriginal Corporation. Report produced for the Australian Federal Court proceedings and Consent Determination..