I work in political geography, with reference to three overlapping areas of interest: geopolitics, biopolitics and aesthetics.

Aesthetics

My current research looks at how geopolitical events are encountered, negotiated and contested through art. Focusing particularly on artistic responses to the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, my work explores how artists experience and respond to geopolitical events and how artworks are used, exhibited and discussed in the context of broader debates about aesthetics, politics and space. This work has been developed through a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship awarded to research artistic responses to the Iraq war in Britain. There is a blog on this project at http://www.responsestoiraq.wordpress.comand a website for the exhibition based on my research can be found at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/iraq-war-geographies.

Biopolitics

My research since joining UCL has also explored what is often called the securitisation of global health. This work explores the shift towards framing and managing global health issues such as HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases as matters of security and the implications of renewed interest among military and security agencies in global health. Drawing on ideas of biopolitics and governmentality as well as political-economic approaches, my work has explored the geopolitical stakes and dimensions of global health, arguing that these pervade contemporary global health initiatives but also work their way through the politics of national health.

Geopolitics

My graduate and post-doctoral research examined the implications of Russian nationalism for the geopolitics of the post-Soviet states. Following the collapse of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and amid concerns about the stability of the region, my research examined the claims, strategies and dynamics of a resurgent Russian nationalism and its relationship to post-Soviet state building. The research highlighted the radical implications of Russian nationalism and the manner in which nationalist intellectuals were drawing on classical Western theories of geopolitics, but also identified factors limiting the prospects for Russian nationalism to precipitate wider instability in the post-Soviet region.