Research Areas

My research focuses on the nature of security, violence and global order.Broadly speaking, this means three interlinked areas of interest

• Theories of security and violence (especially war, genocide, and terrorism)
• Theories of the structure and dynamics of global order
• Theories of political subjectivity (especially identity)

I approach these questions from a perspective informed by Continental philosophy, in particular the work of Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and Jean-Luc Nancy.

I am particularly interested in the insecurity and violence that accompanies urbanisation as well as the role of cities in global order.

Cities, insecurity and violence

Urbicide

My most recent published research is on urbicide – the killing of cities. I have outlined a theoretical framework for understanding the deliberate destruction of cities. I view this destruction as a mechanism through which exclusionary regimes (such as ethnic-nationalism) destroy the possibility of plural co-existence. This research arose out of consideration of the 1992-95 Bosnian war. You can read more about the argument and my recent book Urbicide: The Politics of Urban Destruction here.

Cities Under Fire

My current research project broadens out this interest in urban destruction to examine the wider problem if warfare in cities. The city is increasingly targeted by forms of war such as that waged by the US and UK in Iraq, terrorist attacks such as 7th July 2005 London bombings and the house demolitions carried out by the Israeli Defence Force. This research project aims to understand the manner in which these forms of war demonstrate the emergence of distinctly urban forms of political violence. I have referred to this problem as the urbanisation of security –security practices (including war) become urbanised whilst the urban fabric simultaneously becomes suffused with security technologies.

Questions of Global Order

As an International Relations scholar I am naturally interested in questions of the structure and dynamics of politics on a global scale. I have published research on the way in which we might conceive global politics in the contemporary era. In this work I examined whether the concept of Empire captures the manner in which the globalisation of dynamics of power has given rise to novel forms of global order. This work was published in Third World Quarterly and Theory and Event. You can find more details here.

Global Urbanisation and International Relations

I am currently examining the manner in which global urbanisation poses a conceptual challenge for the discipline of International Relations. Given that the majority of the global population now lives an urban life, the question must be asked what impact urbanisation will have on our understanding of the nature of global order. I suggest that the answer to this question lies in understanding the manner in which urbanisation challenges the traditional models of global order based on territorial sovereignty. Our world is one of linked cities rather than related states. This research aims to outline the implications of such a suggestion.

Materiality, Subjectivity and Anthropocentrism

In my research I also address a number of theoretical questions regarding political subjectivity raised by the city and urbanisation. The main question concerns the role of material structures – buildings, infrastructures – in the constitution of the political subject. I have suggested in my work that city dwellers are cyborgs –their distinctive identities are formed in relation to material structures (buildings, roads, trains, fibre-optic cables and so on). This, however, means that the usual anthropocentrism of political theory (which is often conceived of as a discussion about autonomous subjects and their rights) must be challenged. We must begin to think about the way in which city-dwellers are not simply autonomous individuals but, rather, are complex assemblages in which things play an important role. As such we must challenge the anthropocentrism of traditional (liberal) political theory.

Further information and reading

Details of (and links to) my published research can be found here.

Links to some unpublished work can be found here (please respect the request on each piece of work and do not cite unpublished work without my permission).