University of Sussex

Post-Doc, International Relations

ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow

About

My research centres on understanding how competing meanings emerge around security issues by applying a materialities and practice theory framework to international security problems.

My PhD research was an exploration of meaning-making in the Global War on Terror (GWoT) through a study of the material practices connected with Guantánamo, the controversial U.S. military detention and interrogation site.

By examining practices involving its matter (bodies, objects and spaces) and their successive alterations, I argued that different representations, even realities, of the war were produced. U.S. administrations used these material practices to produce and reinforce political positions and so construct ‘common sense’ concerning the nature of security threats, on the one hand, and what constitutes legal and humane treatment, on the other. Those opposed to Guantánamo – including those detained inside as well as those protesting outside – were inevitably involved in counter-constructions that revolved around matter. In short, materialities were central to the competition over what it means to be secure in a post-9/11 world.

My work as a an ESRC Research Postdoctoral Fellow builds and expands on several lines of argument that emerged from this work:

• Materialities and Practice Theory
• US Foreign Policy, US politics and the GWoT and beyond (Bush to Obama)
• The ‘Cultural Turn’ and Interpretive methodologies in World Politics

My research and teaching interests therefore also extend to international security more broadly, international relations theory, North American security and defence policy, the application of theories of materialities and visualities to security problems, the security-development nexus, the militarisation of counterterrorism, the militarisation of aid, technology and security, as well as the role of culture, the media and gender in conflicts.