Baden Offord AO is a writer, teacher, activist and scholar born in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa New Zealand of Māori (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Hau and Ngāti Hao on father's side and Waikato Tainui, Ngāti Māhanga on mother's side) and Pākehā (Irish, English) heritage. He migrated to Australia with his family in 1961 and has lived with respect and gratitude in Eora and Bundjalung Country, now living in Whadjuk Noongar Boodja (Southwest Western Australia). He identifies as takatāpui.

Baden has received several national teaching awards including an ALTC and Carrick and in 2021 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) "For distinguished service to tertiary education in the field of human rights, social justice, and cultural diversity." He received a public education and was the first in his family to attend university. He sees education as a blessing on the mind and heart.

Presently he is Emeritus Professor of Human Rights and Cultural Studies. Previously he was the Dr Haruhisa Handa Chair of Human Rights at Curtin University's acclaimed Centre for Human Rights Education. Other positions he has held include Professor of Cultural Studies and Human Rights and Co-Director, Centre for Peace and Social Justice, at Southern Cross University; Chair (Visiting Professor) in Australian Studies at the University of Tokyo; Visiting Professor in the Centre for Australian Studies at the University of Barcelona; Visiting Fellow, Critical Studies in Education Te Kura O te Kōtuinga Akoranga Mātauranga, University of Auckland; and Ph.D. National Visiting Scholar, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. He has given guest lectures at Chuo University, Otemon Gakuin University, Tohoku University, Keio University, Murdoch University, University of Sydney, University of Madras (Chennai) and McGill University.

Notable published works include his sole authored Homosexual Rights as Human Rights: Activism in Indonesia, Singapore and Australia (2003), which won the George Duncan Memorial Award; co-authored volume Inside Australian Culture: Legacies of Enlightenment Values (2015), which came out of a rich collaboration with Indian scholars Ashis Nandy and Vin D'Cruz, and the co-edited book, Activating Social and Cultural Change: Pedagogies of Human Rights (2022), dedicated to Paulo Freire. His article "Beyond our Nuclear Entaglement" appeared in Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, in a special issue edited by John Kinsella and Drew Milne in 2017.

A notable contribution to Curtin University includes a collaboration with his colleagues in the Centre for Human Rights Education for the establishment of the Curtin Annual Human Rights Lecture in 2016. This flagship event has featured leading advocates, scholars, journalists and intellectuals including Professor Gillian Triggs AC, The Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG, broadcaster Dr Waleed Aly, acclaimed journalist Behrouz Boochani, Indigenous change makers Professor Judy Atkinson AM and Dr Tracy Westerman AM, disability advocate Samantha Connor AM, critical race law feminist Professor Adrien Wing and socceroo human rights acivist Craig Foster AM.
 
Baden is a passionate communicator, concerned with self-reflexive, decolonising and ethical meaning making, truth telling, cultural translation and bearing witness. He views culture as the fabric of society. He will admit, it took an entire career for him to write his Overland essay on the nature of intergenerational trauma and endemic suicide in his family: "Becoming human: lived experience, suicide and the complexities of being." He has learned in his life that vulnerability, fallibility and humility are the sentinels of truth, power, encounters and freedom. 

HONOURS AND DISTINCTIONS

2025 Invited Keynote: "No Ordinary Sun: A Cultural Pedagogy of Heat and Survival." Cultural Studies Association of Australasia's Annual conference, themed "So hot right now," University of Melbourne.

2021 Appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) on the Queen's Birthday Honours List.

Citation: "For distinguished service to tertiary education in the field of human rights, social justice, and cultural diversity."

2018 Honorary Visiting Fellow, Centre for Australian Studies, University of Barcelona

2017 Invited Keynote: 'Of being fully alive in the world: understanding the activism/art of John Akomfrah,' Launch of Exhibition, Perth International Arts Festival

2016 Invited Named Keynote. The Fourth Kathleen Firth Lecture: "Holding to Account: Visualising Human Rights and Cosmopolitan Betrayal" at the IAFOR Global Studies Conference on “The Global and The Local: Crossing Sites of Cultural, Critical, & Political Intervention.” Barcelona

2014 Visiting Scholar, Kinsey Institute for Research into Gender, Sex and Reproduction, Indiana University

2013 Visiting Fellow, Critical Studies in Education Te Kura O te Kōtuinga Akoranga Mātauranga, University of Auckland

2012 Invited Visiting Fellow, Centre for Australian Studies, University of Barcelona

2012 Invited Keynote: ‘Gender and Sexuality Equality in Asia,’ 14th EU-NGO Forum on Human Rights held in Brussels. Invited by The European External Action Service and the European Commission, together with the Human Rights and Democracy Network and the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation.

2012 Completed a three-week lecture tour in Japan sponsored by the Australian Prime Minister's Educational Assistance Funds following the 2011 Great East Japan Tohoku earthquake.

2012 Invited Keynote: 'Gender, Sexuality and Cosmopolitanism in Multicultural Australia: A case study.'  Global Centre of Excellence in Research, Gender Equality and Multicultural Conviviality, School of Law, Tohoku University, Japan

2011 Academic Impact Award - Excellence in Community Engagement Awards, Southern Cross University

2010 Invited Visiting Fellow, Centre for Australian Studies, University of Barcelona

2010 Vice-Chancellor’s Certificate of Appreciation For significant contribution to Southern Cross University. Awarded for Chair, Human Research Ethics Committee, 2004-2008 (5 years)

2009 Australian Learning and Teaching Council Award Excellence in Teaching. Citation: "Developing and sustaining an innovative, holistic and transformative education practice that values social inclusion, cultural diversity and activated citizenship."

2008 Invited Visiting Fellow, Centre for Australian Studies, University of Barcelona

2008 Visiting Fellow, Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University

2008 Visiting Scholar, Kinsey Institute for Research into Gender, Sex and Reproduction, Indiana University

2007 Invited Named Keynote: The Eighth Annual Professor Doireann McDermott Lecture at the University of Barcelona, Spain. Title: ‘Village in the Jungle.’ 

2006 Manning Clark House Honourable Mention for Outstanding Contribution to Australian Culture

2006 Carrick Australian Award Teaching Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning. Citation: "For pioneering cultural studies and cultural diversity programs in regional Australia; outstanding command of his field; and inspiring transformative student learning."

2005 George Duncan Memorial Award for the book Homosexual Rights as Human Rights: Activism in Indonesia, Singapore and Australia.

2004 NSW Minister for Education and Training Australian College of Educators Quality Teaching Award

2004 Special Mention, Individual Category, Australian Cultural Studies Award Outstanding Contribution to Australian Culture

2003 Invited Visiting Fellow, Centre for Australian Studies, University of Barcelona

2003 Visiting Fellow, Rajghat Krishnamurti Educational Centre, Varanasi, India

1997 Visiting National PhD Scholar, Department of Human Geography, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University

1995-1998 Australian Commonwealth Scholarship with Stipend (APA) 

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Since 1997, Baden has provided extensive expert testimony for Indonesian, Singaporean and Malaysian gay, lesbian and transgender asylum seekers pro bono through the New York Immigration Task Force for Gays and Lesbians as well as for US and Australian law firms, the Canadian Government and he has been a consultant for CNN.