Staff supervisory interests

You can search all UoB staff and their research interests via the Staff Profiles webpages.

Academic staff in SPAIS are particularly interested in supervising in the following research areas:

Professor Bridget Anderson

Critical migration studies; mobility; citizenship; domestic labour; immigration enforcement.

Dr Sam Appleton

Global political economy; Global governance; Practices and politics of development finance; Multilateral financial institutions; Managerialism and neoliberalism

Social class in relation to educational inequalities, employment, culture, politics, identities and everyday life; Bourdieu, field theory and phenomenology. I’m usually keener to supervise a thesis that uses Bourdieu but has little to do with class than a thesis on class that has little to do with Bourdieu.

Dr Roddy Brett

Political violence, Genocide, Transitional justice, Terrorism (state and non-state), Reconciliation, Peace processes/negotiations, Peacebuilding, including local level peacebuilding, Post-conflict criminality, Regional interest in particular in Latin America, Ukraine, Northern Ireland, Lebanon

Dr B Camminga

Queer, trans and intersex displacement, migration, and asylum; Queer and trans histories, archives, movements, and meaning-making in Global South contexts, with a particular focus on the African continent

Professor Terrell Carver

sex, gender sexuality, masculinity, discourse and rhetorical analysis, visual analysis and methods, Marx, Engels, Marxisms, post-structuralism, performativity, history of political thought,

Dr Egle Cesnulyte

Gender in African politics (especially Kenya and East Africa); feminist political economy of everyday life; gender in informal and social reproductive work; sex work; gender and development, especially critical approaches to development; neoliberalism.

Professor Katharine Charsley

Marriage-related migration; gender and migration (including masculinity); other issues in migration, ethnicity, transnationalism & diaspora; British South Asians (particularly Pakistanis) and other South Asian diasporas; kinship; qualitative methods.

Associate Professor (in Peacebuilding and Disaster Studies) Ryerson Christie

Peacebuilding; disaster studies (focusing on vulnerabilities and capacities); civil society / state interaction in post-conflict states; human security.

Professor Rebecca Coleman

Digital cultures, digital media, time, futures, affect, bodies, creative methods

Dr Lucas de Abreu Maia

US politics and government; public opinion; mass political behaviour; ideology in mass publics; quantitative methods; Latin American politics.

Dr Alix Dietzel

Climate change; global justice; just transition; decision making; diversity and inclusion in the environment sector; UNFCCC; global climate change governance

Dr Filippo Dionigi

Forced displacement in the Middle East; Islamist movements; international relations theory applied to the analysis of Middle Eastern affairs; natural language processing and text-mining methodologies applied to international relations.

Dr Ashley Dodsworth

Environmental Politics; Climate Change; Gender; Political Theory; Human Rights; History of Political Thought; Republicanism

Dr John Downer

Science and Technology Studies (STS); Sociology of knowledge and expertise; Technological risk and regulation. (Especially as these apply to: AI; autonomous systems; civil aviation; nuclear energy and weapons; administrative bureaucracy; critical infrastructures.)

Professor Tim Edmunds

Maritime Security, Ocean Governance, Marine Environmental Protection, Geopolitical Competition at Sea, Human Rights at Sea, Transnational Organised Crime at Sea, Maritime Security Sector Reform

Dr Magnus Feldmann

comparative and international political economy; populism; political parties

Dr Adrian Flint

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Climate Change and Development, HIV & AIDS

Professor Jonathan Floyd

Most topics in political theory/philosophy, whether abstract or applied, though especially those involving method/methodology. In the past I have worked on or supervised work on e.g. the possibility of doing 'public' political philosophy, the relationship between political theory and political practice (via e.g. the ideal/nonideal-theory debate, facts/principles debate, and moralism/realism debate); the relationship between political theory and political science; the relationship between political theory and history; general problems of justification and methodology (including e.g. constructivism, contextualism, and coherentism/reflective-equilibrium), and the scope for teaching political philosophy in schools as a form of 'citizen' education.

Dr Gaston Fornes

Development of small and mid-sized firms in developing countries; relations between China and other developing countries (in particular Latin American); management in developing countries.

Dr Tim Fowler

Contemporary liberal theories of social justice, especially with respect to education and family policy, and issues of religious and ethical diversity.

Professor Jon Fox

Nationalism; ethnicity; migration; everyday nationhood; integration; racialisation; East Europe; East European migration

Professor Roberta Guerrina

Gendered impact of Brexit; Feminist Foreign Policy; EU gender politics and policies; Feminist security studies and the Women, peace and security agenda; Institutional approaches to equality, diversity and inclusion.

Professor Jo Haynes

Popular music; race, especially in music, culture & media; sociology of culture; cultural and creative industries; creative labour; cultural entrepreneurship; music festivals; music sociology; sociological methods.

Professor Eric Herring

Sustainable development. Methods: co-production/co-creation, qualitative, critical.

Dr Nazia Hussein

I am interested in supervising PhD students and postdoctoral scholars studying gender, race, religion and culture using postcolonial and feminist theoretical frameworks. These approaches can be applied to a range of inequality studies: e.g. Muslim, Black and minority communities in the UK or Third World countries, particularly South Asia. I am also interested in media representations of women, particularly minority women’s representation in the media. My current research projects look at decolonial thought and its application in studies of inequality.

Dr Kuba Jablonowski

Critical data studies; Critical border studies; Digital identity; Migration governance; Bureaucracies, institutions, and social movements; Surveillance and documentation studies; Digital methods; Engaged research; Novel strategies for information disclosure.

Professor Jonathan Joseph

International Relations theory, social theory, philosophy of social science, Marxism and critical theory, poststructuralism, new approaches to International Relations, the concepts of hegemony and governmentality. Global governance, peacebuilding, resilience.

Professor Ana Juncos Garcia

EU foreign and security policy; peacebuilding; conflict resolution; populist foreign policy; EU enlargement; Bosnia and Herzegovina; Western Balkans; elite socialisation

Professor Saffron Karlsen

Ethnicity, religion, racialisation, health, social inequality and exclusion, social identity and group awareness, quantitative and mixed methods research.

Dr Winnie King

East Asian political economy; economic development in East Asia; Policy making; state/non-state actor relations; Civil society; Chinese politics and international relations; Sino-EU relations; Sino-UK relations; Taiwan politics.

Dr Raphael Lefevre

Political violence; Civil wars; Politics of armed groups; Organized crime; Middle East politics; Sunni and Shia Islamist movements

Dr Sarah Lockwood

Protests, social movements and collective action. Democracy, autocracy and populism in Africa. Political parties. Political violence. South Africa. Mixed methods (anything from quants to ethnography and experiments). Particular regional expertise on Sub-Saharan Africa.

Professor Lee Marshall

Popular music; sociology of art and culture; media and popular culture, especially audiences and fan cultures; stardom and celebrity; authorship, copyright and piracy; cultural and creative industries, including creative labour; the music industry.

Dr Neil Matthews

Political violence; conflict resolution and post-conflict peacebuilding; peace processes; party ideology and party organisation; political elites and representation; collective memory; UK and Irish politics, with particular interest in Northern Ireland

Dr Peace Medie

Gender and security, gender and politics in Africa, civilian self-protection

Dr Torsten Michel

I am happy to supervise PhD theses on subjects covering the politics and ethics of mass violence (especially fascism, genocide, and dehumanisation) as well as projects engaging with IR (meta-)theory (particularly reflectivism, phenomenology, and ontology).

Dr Sveta Milyaeva

The sociology of science and technology, economic sociology - especially the social studies of finance and social studies of markets, digital economy, digital personal data and data privacy, and marketisation of higher education.

Professor Tariq Modood

Theory and politics of multiculturalism and secularism; ethnic identities, national identities and the 'second generation'; ethnic disadvantage and progress in employment and education; comparisons within and between Western Europe and North America; the politics of being Muslim in the West and Islamophobia.

Dr Marcus Morgan

Cultural sociology, political sociology, social movements, social theory, social performance, narrative, symbolism, power, humanism and/in the social sciences, philosophy of the social sciences.

Dr Michael Naughton

Criminal justice, with a specialist interest in miscarriages of justice; the application of the zemiological perspective; Foucault, Goffman and Bauman.

Dr Rosie Nelson

Trans, non binary, LGBTQIA+, bisexuality, kink, BDSM, polyamory, ‘non-traditional’ sexual and/or romantic relationships, gender theory, queer theory, intersectionality, qualitative methods, media, health, sex work

Dr Jack Nicholls

Deliberative Democracy, ethnographic studies, political sociology, public participation, net zero, climate justice, energy transitions

Professor Julia O'Connell Davidson

Slavery, 'modern slavery', the afterlife of racial slavery; trafficking, smuggling, labour migration, debt and migration; childhood, especially children and migration, labour or sexuality; sex work; domestic work.

Dr Jessica Ogden

Digital culture; Science and Technology Studies (STS); Sociology of knowledge; Hackers and hacker cultures; Web/internet futures; Infrastructure studies; Web archives and memory work; Digital/data activism; Digital methods innovation and participatory methods.

Dr Aslak-Antti Oksanen

Marxist and decolonial International Relations theory; indigenous peoples' issues in global politics; Arctic geopolitics, environmental and indigenous peoples’ issues; indigenous peoples’ nationalism and self-determination.

Dr Sam Okyere

I am interested in supervising PhD studies focused on childhood and child rights, migration, mobility, human trafficking, sex work/prostitution, ‘modern slavery', child and adult labour in artisanal mining, fishing, agriculture and other sectors. I am also interested in PhDs focused on the interplay between human and child rights, power, class, ethnicity, inequality, legacies of the transatlantic slave trade, colonization, neoliberalism and globalisation. I am especially (but not exclusively) keen on proposals that aim to examine these topics and themes in Africa.

Professor Tom Osborne

"Social theory - political theory - governmentality - populism. Weber and charisma. Liberalism and political thought. Realism and political thought. Montesquieu. Burke. Foucault. Luhmann. Historiography. Collingwood. Humanism and humanity/philosophical anthropology. Biological science and social theory. Evolutionary psychology."

Professor Therese O’Toole

Race, ethnicity, gender, Muslim civil society organisations, governance, Prevent, security/counter-terrorism, political participation, youth, social movements

Dr Jessica Paddock

I am keen to supervise students working on issues related to consumption, food insecurity, sustainability, sustainable futures, from a range of standpoints.

Dr Hannah Parrot

The politics of (un)sustainability (ecological, social, political and economic); utopian theory and praxis; utopia/dystopia and popular culture; prefigurative politics; green citizenship; intentional communities; nature connection and awareness; the politics of degrowth.

Dr Columba Peoples

Critical security studies; critical theories of technology and international relations; nuclear security; space security; planetary (in)security.

Dr Nieves Perez-Solorzano Borragan

European Union politics and institutions. Brexit and regulatory divergence. European Union enlargement. Europeanisation and de-Europeanisation. Democracy, representation, and civil society. Lobbying, interest groups, and lobbying regulations. Comparative politics and public policy (especially institutions and regulation).

Dr Maud Perrier

Care, work, family, mothers, class, feminist movements, social reproduction theory.

Dr Mircea Popa

Comparative and international political economy, corruption, financial/economic crises, formal theory, quantitative methods.

Dr Sam Power

Political/campaign financing; British politics; European politics; Lobbying; Parliaments; Electoral regulation; AI

Dr Katharina Richter

Environmental politics; post/degrowth; energy transition; just transitions; sustainable development; post-development; Latin American social movements, theories and indigenous rights.

Dr Chris Rossdale

Social movements, solidarity politics, political resistance, direct action, civil disobedience. Criminalisation and repression of protest and dissent. Critical military studies, militarism and anti-militarism, state violence, arms trade. Critical international theory – especially using feminist/postcolonial/critical race/queer/anarchist approaches.

Dr Thomas Sealy

multiculturalism, secularism, religion and politics, religious diversity, ethnicity and racialisation, planetary sociology (human/non-human identities/interactions).

Dr Elena Stavrevska

Decolonial and/or feminist approaches to peace and peacebuilding; political economy of conflict-affected societies; intersectionality and peacebuilding; feminisms and/in the Balkans; post-Yugoslav space; Women, Peace and Security agenda; politics of knowledge production

Professor Paula Sur ridge

I am interested in social and political attitudes, public opinion and (sociological understandings of) British Politics. I am also interested in the broad field of Sociology of Education (especially the role of the education system in reproducing political behaviour and social inequalities). Also able to supervise on issues of class and national identity.

Dr Leonidas Tsilipakos

Social theory; methodology, philosophy and history of the social sciences; Michel Foucault; Wittgenstein and ordinary language philosophy

Dr Karen Tucker

Indigenous politics, environmental politics, politics of knowledge and expertise, coloniality and decoloniality, collaborative and creative methodologies.

Dr Elspeth Van Veeren

Secrecy studies; ignorance studies; cultures of secrecy; surveillance studies; US military and security practices; US foreign policy and identity (esp. gender and race); US politics and democracy; theories of democracy; the war on terror; critical security studies; visual politics; art, cultural studies and security; popular culture and world politics; feminist and queer theories; gender and sexuality studies; race, the politics of race, black political thought and critical race theories; continental philosophy in politics and international relations; sociology of scientific knowledge.

Dr Sam Warner

UK politics; public administration and governance; public policy; HM Treasury and public spending; the politics of (de/re)politicisation; industrial relations; archival analysis.

Professor Jutta Weldes

I am interested in supervising in a wide range of areas, mainly related to world politics/International Relations. These include popular culture and world politics; feminisms, gender and world politics; critical international relations theories; the discourse/ideology of US foreign policy (including but not limited to cold war, post-cold war, war on terror, Christian nationalism); post-structural/post-Marxist and feminist discourse analysis (but not CDA [Critical Discourse Analysis]) and interpretive methods.

Dr Jennifer Whillans

I am interested in the temporal organisation, understanding, and experience of mundane practices in daily life, especially – but not limited to – eating (at home, at work, in restaurants), employment, and sleep. Interests include: Time; Timing; Mundane practices; Eating; Paid work; Routines; Rhythms; Synchronization; Coordination; Schedules; Theories of practice; Domestic division of labour; Social change; Quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods