Nick Osbaldiston

Associate Professor Nick Osbaldiston is a sociologist who joined JCU in 2015. He has previously worked at the University of Melbourne, Monash University and Federation University (Gippsland). Nick currently works in the College of Arts, Society and Education and a teaching and research academic. He is also currently a research fellow with the Cairns Institute.

Nick's research work predominantly covers the areas of lifestyle migration, internal migration, social theory, place and Australia's coasts, higher education labour and climate change adaptation. In the past, he has published several books including Understanding Lifestyle Migration with Professor Michaela Benson (Palgrave, 2014), Seeking Authenticity in Place, Culture and Self (Palgrave, 2012) and Towards a Sociology of the Coast (Palgrave, 2019). He has also published widely on higher education labour culminating in the book The Social Structures of Global Academia with Dr Fabian Cannizzo (Routledge, 2019).

Nick is currently working on a number of projects including work with colleagues from across Australia on internal migration trends pre and post covid19. In addition to this, he is working on a follow up monograph on a cultural sociology of coasts, due for publication in 2026. 

He has extensive experience with honours and PhD students in sociology, geography, planning and theory. Currently he is supervising students in various areas and is available for supervision especially on areas of population and sociology.

Nick recently served as the TASA Social Theory Thematic Group co-convener, and is presently on the editorial board of Australian Planner and the American Journal of Cultural Sociology.