Nayrouz Abu-Hatoum, BA (The Hebrew University), MA (York University) 
Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests: 
Visual Anthropology, borders, state violence, militarism, surveillance, exile, displacement, visual violence, Israel-Palestine. Her current (doctoral) research explores the Israeli built ‘separation’ wall in Palestine through the visual life created around it. 

Hulya Arik,BA (Bogazici University), MA(Central European University)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

Geographies of militarisms, militarization; secularism, secularization; geographies of gender and sexuality, female body; state power, discursive violence, contested spaces; genealogies of the ‘religious’ and ‘secular’; “political Islam”, geographies of religion. Hulya’s working title for her PhD dissertation is:  “Secular Bodyscapes: Intersections of Militarism and Secularism in the Construction of the Female Body”.  Her research explores construction of the female body at the intersection of secularism and the militarist discourses in Turkey. She looks at the gender dynamics of secularized military spaces and the experiences of women in military families as they negotiate their religious/secular identities through discourses and spaces.

Véronique Aubry, BA (Sherbrooke), MA (Ottawa)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:
(In)Security studies; imperialism, identity, and security; the politics of knowledge production; feminist, poststructuralist, and postcolonial approaches to security. Her most recent work involves a critique of feminist theorization on prostitution and the sex trade, with particular attention given to the politics of identity involved in such theorization. She is an Ontario Graduate Scholarship recipient for 2004-2005 and 2005-2006.

Mark Ayyash, BA (Dalhousie), MA (Carleton)

Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests:
Critical social and political theory; politics and violence; language, dialogue, and violence; the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; US invasion of Iraq. He has previously published on the neoconservative discourse and the Iraq War, the 'violent dialogue' between Hamas and the Israeli State, and the exilic writing of Edward Said. His dissertation is advancing a different conceptualization of violence in the context of the fight for Jerusalem. He holds a SSHRC doctoral fellowship award, and has previously held the George G. Bell Scholarship at YCISS.

Casey E. Babb, BA (Saint Mary's University), MA (York University) 

Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests:

Border security;immigration policy; surveillance; security ethics in Canada; Canadian foreign policy; Canada's relationship with Israel; counter-terrorism; counter-insurgency; intelligence network efficiencies and inefficiencies. His major research interests deal with the interplay between Canadian identity and its security policies, particularly centered in the post 9/11 era. He is is also currently examining the changed nature of Canadian identity with respect to its peacekeeping and military operations.

Bianca Baggiarini BA (Simon Fraser University), MA (Simon Fraser University)
Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

Critical feminist-Foucaultian theory; discourse analysis; state theories within political/historical sociology; gendered violence and militarization; biopolitics; neoliberal spatialization techniques. Her current research focuses on the privatization and/or corporatization of warfare, sexual violence and biopolitical governmentality, and "the history of the present."

Ali Behran Ozcelik, BA (Mekteb-i Mülkiye), MA (New York University)

Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests:

Marxist political economy; Marxist theories of the state and globalization (along the lines identified by Nicos Poulantzas); Turkish nationalism; Turkish politics and public administration; the transformations in the Turkish state. His current (doctoral) research explores the intra-class conflicts between the fractions of the Turkish bourgeoisie and their reflections at the state level as intra-state contradictions between/within various state apparatuses, including the repressive state apparatus. To the degree this involves identifying the different regional integration projects of different bourgeois fractions; he also looks at Middle Eastern politics and popular struggles.

Elena Cirkovic, Honours BA, MA (Toronto)

Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests:

International human rights law, constitutional law, indigenous peoples; ethnic and cultural minorities; international legal theory and history; theories and history of nationalism and citizenship; Aboriginal-state relations; Latin American politics, society, and economy.

Thierry Côté, BA, MA (Université Paris-II), MA (Ottawa)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:
Critical and poststructuralist approaches to security; popular music and security; popular culture and its relationship to international relations; globalization, communications and security; imperialism and the culture industries; celebrity activism. His most recent research focuses on the popular musician as a political actor and, more specifically, as a threat to state security. He was the recipient of a York Entrance Scholarship for 2004-2005 and an Ontario Graduate Scholarship for 2005-2006.

Karine Côté-Boucher, BA (Laval), MA (York)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

Border surveillance and national security; economic globalization; citizenship, refugee and immigration policy; religion, secularism and gender in Western societies. Based on interviews with Canadian border officers and an analysis of public policy in continental trade, transportation and border security, her dissertation critically examines the daily tensions generated by the double task of facilitating commodity flows while ensuring border security. Her publications can be found in Surveillance and Society and Cahiers de recherche sociologique, as well as in the collections Neoliberalism and Everyday Life and Mobilités sous surveillance: perspectives croisées UE-Canada. She wrote the introduction to James Sheptycki’s Essays on Transnational Crime and Policing. A past fellow of Osgoode law school’s Nathanson Centre for Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security, she was a recipient of a Stuart Nesbitt White fellowship from the Ministry of Public Safety and of a Canada Graduate Scholarship through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Lori A. Crowe, BA (UBC), MA (University of Victoria)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:
Popular Culture and International Relations; Media and the military; Developments in military technology (Robotics/Nanotechnology); Masculinity, militarization and film; Arctic security; critical security studies.  Her
dissertation “Pop Culture, Security and IR: The Militarized Superhero” looks at how popular Hollywood

Superhero/action movies both reflect and shape our attitudes, beliefs and understandings of militarized violence, hyper-masculinity and neo-liberal modes of governance through the Superhero character, narrative, corporeality, and aesthetic.

Elya M Durisin, BA (McMaster), MES (York)
Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests:

Political economy of globalization; transnational feminism and postcolonial theory; theories of sexual labour; Canadian policy related to sex work and prostitution. Her dissertation research critically examines Canada's anti-trafficking measures, focusing on the discourse surrounding the subject of trafficking and the outcome of anti-trafficking policies for migrant women working in the sex industry in Canada. Elya currently holds a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship.

Chelsea Ferriday, Honours BA (Waterloo), MA (York)

Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests:

How personal and external threats interact with personality characteristics to affect religious radicalization. Further Chelsea is interested in extrinsic and intrinsic religiosity, collective self-esteem, and the affect of group obedience on religious extremism.

Carolyn Filteau, BA/MA (UBC), LLM/ PhD Candidate  (Osgoode Law School)

Residence:  YCISS, Osgoode Law School

Research interests:

International law, humanitarian intervention, international legal theory, national security, global conflict, morality and ethics in war, sovereignty, changing status of the state, the responsibility to protect, global governance, civil society and interest groups.  She was the recipient of a Harry Arthurs Scholarship in 2008-09.

Chris Hendershot, BA, MA (McMaster)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:
Private security and military firms; privatization of peacekeeping; militarized masculinities; images and imaginaries of the Canadian Forces. Current (doctoral) research focuses on a post-structural feminist analysis of the privatization of the global organization and practice of war and security.

Andrea Hopkins, Honours BA (Ottawa)

Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests:

Critical security studies; critical IR theory, particularly critical feminist theory and post-colonialism; human (in)security; the Responsibility to Protect (R2P); disarmament and arms control; the “War on Terrorism”; and the interplay between religion and identity politics with conflict. She is the recipient of a York University entrance scholarship and the John Gellner Graduate Scholarship in Security Studies.

Naoko Ikeda, BA (State University of New York at Albany), MA (York)

Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests:

Feminist methods and studies of conflict zones, militarized violence, and the transnational feminist peace movement. Field of research: A study of gendered process of militarization of Okinawa & women’s non-governmental response to violence.

Arthur Imperial, BA (York), MA (McMaster)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

Poststructural, postcolonial, and feminist theories; politics of knowledge production; politics of identity construction; freedom, agency, and transversality; international inequalities in the security of education; global student activism, and critical pedagogy. His current research examines how colonial practices are perpetuated through technologies of the state, specifically at the site of education. He is concerned with the subjectivity of international academic assessment which creates human insecurity for immigrants while also reflecting the continuing delegitimation of non-western knowledges. He is an Ontario Graduate Scholarship recipient for 2006-2007.

Sara L. Jackson, B.A. (University of Washington), M.A. (University of British Columbia)

Research Interests:

political geography, political ecology, cultural geographies of resource extraction, relationships between mining and water resources, environmental displacement. Her working dissertation title is “Building a Gold Rush: Imagining New Territories in Mongolia’s South Gobi.” She holds doctoral fellowships from SSHRC and the American Center for Mongolian Studies.

Angela Joya, BA, MA (York)

Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests:

Political economy of state formation and class formation; economic liberalization and political reform in the Middle East. Current research focuses on human insecurities (precarious working/living conditions) resulting from processes that aim to secure the Middle East for economic development and capital flows. Other research focuses on US strategies of 'democratization' in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. She received a York entrance scholarship for 1999, 2002, and 2003 and an Ontario Graduate Scholarship for 2003-2004 and 2004-2005.

Baris Karaagac, BA (Bilkent University, Ankara), MA (York)

Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests:

History of political economy; Marxist political economy; globalization theory; militarism; nationalism in Turkey and the EU; labour movements; political economy of modern Turkey; theories of European integration; EU social policy; EU employment policy; left parties in the EU. Current research : Transformation of the employment policy of the Social Democratic Party of Germany in the era of globalization.

Konstantin Kilibarda, Honours BA, MA (Toronto)

Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests:

Post-communist transition; NATO expansion; transnational criminal networks; patterns of voluntary/forced migration; Balkan social movements; post-colonial IR theory; the political economy of new media. His current focus is on the impact that the conjuncture between neoliberal restructuring and the criminalization of Balkan economies has had on state-society relations in the region (with a particular focus on Montenegro). His broader project is to bring into conversation critical work in post-communist and post-colonial studies.

Abhinava Kumar, BA, MA (York)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

Critical social theory with an emphasis on poststructuralist, postcolonial, and feminist approaches to international politics. Areas of focus include: Popular/New media and (in)security; the aesthetics of (in)security; and, (de)colonising research and writing methods.

Karena Kyne, BA Phil (University of Wales, UK), MA in Theory Culture and Politics (Trent)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

Her interests are concerned with the normalization of violence in domestic spaces. Her particular focus has been the rapid development of the Naval Base at Guantanamo, and how violence towards the detainee is normalized in the Naval Base space. She studies postcolonial thought and the philosophy of violence and has an ongoing interest in "camp" spaces - particularly the structures that support them. She was the recipient of the Commonwealth Scholarship for her M.A. and is currently an international scholar at York University.

Nelson Lai, BA, MA (York)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

Post-structuralist, postcolonial, and feminist approaches to International Relations theory; (transnational) feminist theories of nationalism; critical security studies; environmental (in)security. His current research focuses on the productive power of militarized bodies in nationalist narratives, how national identities and subjects/subjectivities are (re)produced through images of uniformed female soldiers and combatants as they are mediated through academic research, international media, the internet, diaspora culture, and films.

Vanessa Lamb, MSc (University of Wisconsin) BA (Ripon College)

Residence: Keele campus, York University

Research Interests:

Borders, conservation, cross-border development, development-induced displacement, knowledge production/Foucauldian theory, political ecology, science and technology studies. My dissertation (tentatively titled "Ecologies of Rule and Resistance") examines the making and mobilizing of ecological knowledge in the context of cross-border development of the Salween River where it comprises the Thai-Burma border.

Mike Larsen, BA, MA (Ottawa)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

Criminology and Critical Security Studies. His current work focuses on contemporary developments in Canadian immigration security detention, specifically on the security certificate mechanism and the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre. He is exploring the creation and management of KIHC as an example of extraordinary detention operating in and through a “legal grey hole”. Mike’s doctoral dissertation deals with post-September 11 public-participatory surveillance campaigns and the enlistment of citizens in “high policing” processes, particularly through the fostering of public vigilance and emergency preparedness activities. Mike holds a Canada Graduate Studies doctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. He is a Fellow at the Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime & Security, where has worked as Coordinator for the “After Arar Workshop Series on Security Intelligence and Human Rights”.

Katherine MacDonald, Honours B.A. (UWO), M.A. (York), M.IDEA (Monash University, Australia).

Research Interests:

Critical geo-politics, political ecology, transnationalism, mobility, de/re-territorialization, Indigeneity,
(post-)colonial theory.

Derek Maisonville, BA (York), MA (McMaster)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

Critical International Relations theory, specifically poststructuralism, postcolonialism, and post-positivist feminism; gender and binary constructions; disciplinary practices and the limitations of disciplined knowledge. He is interested in applying these theoretical approaches to Global Political Economy, especially concerning the deregulation of transnational financial trading. Specifically, his dissertation will explore the social construction, naturalization, and implications for human security of deregulated finance and global(ized/izing) capitalism.

Rachel Manning, BA Honours (York), MA (Saskatchewan)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

Feminist, postcolonial, and poststructural International Relations, including approaches to (in)security; feminist political economy; food insecurity; sub-Saharan Africa; sexual violence as weapon within the political and economic power struggles in the DRC; insecurities/y as violence.

Julian Manyoni, BA Honours (Carleton), MA (UBC)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:
The politics of representation; identity and security in popular culture; the discourse of counterterrorism. His current research focuses on discursive analysis of North American popular cultural representations of counter-terrorism, and their function in the production of narratives of national identity and national security. His work also examines shifting cultural understandings of the relationship between liberty and security, and
the connection between popular representations of the 'war on terror' and the normalization of the state of exception. He was awarded a York Entrance Scholarship in 2002.

Francis Massé, BA Honours (University of Toronto), MA Candidate (York University)

Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests:

Environmental/Human security; livelihood security; Political ecology/economy; transborder/border issues; development induced displacement; conservation; land-use change. Research investigates how the establishment of a transfrontier conservation park has impacted livelihoods and re-shaped livelihood strategies. More specifically, it seeks to understand how the transformation of the international border/borderlands is implicated in these changes. The project is focused on the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park in southern Africa. Recipient of a York University Entrance Scholarship and the Enbridge Graduate Student Award (2011-2012).

Ritu Mathur, BA (University of Calcutta), MA, M Phil (Jawaharlal Nehru University, India)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

Ritu’s Ph.D dissertation is on The International Committee of the Red Cross and Humanitarian Practices of Arms Control and Disarmament and her M.Phil thesis was on The Politics of Theater Missile Defence in East Asia. Her research and teaching interests include: International Relations Theory, International Political Theory, Critical Security Studies, Arms Control and Disarmament, International Organizations, Humanitarianism, War & Peace Movements, International Humanitarian Law and Ethics, Foreign Policies of US, Canada and India, Regional Politics- South Asia, Asia-Pacific and North America, Social Movements & Communication Strategies, Colonialism, Nationalism & Development. Ritu has studied and done research in India, Canada, and Switzerland. She was awarded The Simons Foundations Doctoral Award for Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation 2007-2008, by The Simons Foundations (Vancouver) & International Security Research & Outreach Programme of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Canada.

Pamela McKane, BA Honours (Trent), MA (Saint Mary’s, Dalhousie, and Mount Saint Vincent Universities)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

Feminist theories, ethno-nationalist movements, women’s histories, development studies. Pamela’s current research investigates the roles of Unionist/Loyalist women in the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the ways in which such participation has shaped and been shaped by gendered/raced/classed identities in Northern Ireland. She received a York Entrance Scholarship in 2005/06.

Emily Merson, BA Honours (Toronto), MA (York)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

Politics of knowledge production; poststructural, feminist, and postcolonial approaches to aesthetics and affect, particularly in relation to subjectivity, ‘difference’, security, memory and sovereignty; visual mediations of the politics of the state of exception and exceptionalism. Her recent work considers how visual depictions of the militarized response to Hurricane Katrina problematically characterized this intervention as exceptional violence rather than as reproductive of ongoing structural relations of power. She received the 2007-2008 George G. Bell Doctoral Scholarship sponsored by YCISS.

David Moffette, BA, MA (Laval)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

Anthropology and sociology of policies; governmentality studies; critical and poststructuralist approaches to security. David’s work focuses on the securitization of (im)migration and the changes in Spanish immigration policies (especially the externalization of migration control from Spain to Morocco). He is also interested in promoting reflections and debates on the specific contributions that sociology and anthropology can (could? should?) make to the critical study of security. He is a past recipient of a SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship (2009-2012) and of the YCISS George G. Bell Doctoral Scholarship (2009- 2010).

Matthew Morgan, BA Honours (Carleton), MA (Carleton)

Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research interests:

Critical social and political theory, Italian Marxism, intersections between the law, the state apparatus, and geopolitics and its effects on the formation of subjectivity and contemporary political possibilities. He has a chapter published in Engaging Terror: A Critical and Interdisciplinary Approach. Currently interested in the effect that prolonged periods of instability have upon a society. Has presented several papers arguing that rapid industrialization combined with ossified political institutions leads to the detachment of social forces from these institutions, with drastic effects on the future orientations of these societies, and has focused on Italy and Thailand as case studies.

Rachel O'Donnell, BA Honours (Moravian College, Pennsylvania), MA (York)

Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests:

Feminist approaches to knowledge production, natural history, development and biotechnology. She is interested in colonial voyages of exploration, botanical classification systems, and feminist approaches to scientific practice and method. Rachel’s current research investigates the relationships among historical perspectives on nature, the development of the European sciences, and contemporary bioprospecting in Latin America. She was the recipient of a John Gellner Graduate Scholarship in Security Studies sponsored by YCISS, and of a Martin Cohnstaedt Graduate Research Award for Studies in Non-Violence, which supported fieldwork in Central America.

Jesse Salah Ovadia, BA Honours (Queen's), MA (York)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

Political economy, African politics, and development theory. His research includes a project on ethnicity and conflict in Ghana and on oil extraction in the Gulf of Guinea, with a focus on Angola and Nigeria.

Ajnesh Prasad, BA Honours (Simon Fraser), MA (Queen’s)

Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests:

Contemporary social theory; human security; critical management studies. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in several journals including the International Journal of Social Economics and Peace Review. He is currently working on projects which apply critical theory to the study of organizational diversity. He maintains tertiary research interests in the etiology of ethnic politics in the context of human security. He has won Best Paper Awards for presentations he delivered at the Academy of Management, Administrative Sciences Association of Canada, Midwest Sociological Society and the Southwestern Sociological Association annual conferences. His research is currently supported through a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship, and he has been a past recipient of an Ontario Graduate Scholarship and a Schulich Entrance Scholarship of Merit.

Jen Preston, BA Honours (UVic), MA (York)

Reisdence: Keele Campus, York University

Research interests:

Settler colonial studies; homonationalism and queer theory; critical race theory; decolonizing and anti-imperial thought; feminist theory. Her current research is on biopolitics and necropolitics in the Canadian settler nation state and how settler colonialism informs current notions of national exceptionalism, identity and community, including which bodies are recognized and which are abandoned, shut out and or marked for extinction.  She is a past recipient of a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Graduate Scholarship, Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2009-2010).

Melanie Richter-Montpetit, BA (Free University Berlin, Germany), MA (York)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

Race, violence, and belonging; Work, labour and affect; Bodies, genders and sexualities; Transnational Whiteness and the biopolitics of security and migration; Feminist, queer and postcolonial theories and methodologies; Reconceptualizing security as a central and racially contingent mechanism of governance, Melanie's dissertation research on the U.S. War on Terror and the Homeland Security Project examines how security practices have become dispersed across the social field, ranging from spectacular forms like “shock-and-awe”-warfare and the systematic torture of “enemy combatants” to some more mundane practices such as homeland defense via self-care and sexual/familial relations, to post-conflict reconstruction programs. Some of this research has been published in the International Feminist Journal of Politics and the Austrian Journal of Political Science. Melanie received the 2006 Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Section‘s Award for the best student paper presented at the International Studies Association Annual Convention, a 2004-2005 George G. Bell Doctoral Scholarship sponsored by YCISS as well as a York Entrance scholarship. She has been a past recipient of a DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) fellowship. 

Sébastien Rioux, BA (UQÀM), MA (York)

Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests:

Political economy; food politics and agrarian change; capitalism and violence; critical geography and uneven development; philosophy of science. His dissertation is exploring the relationship between capitalism and food production and consumption, and its impacts on social reproduction and the body. By looking at the phenomenon of food insecurity amidst plenty, but also to the ways in which capitalism produces different types of bodies (e.g. hungry, obese, undernourished, food disorders), his research interrogates the ethical dimensions of capitalist food production for human development as well as the possibilities for social change.

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Maita Abola Sayo, BA (Ateneo de Manila University), MA (York)

Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests:

Maita's research interests include political economy, semiotics, and continental theory. She is currently extracting images of the land and the inhabitants of the Philippines from 16th- to 18th-century texts written by Spanish colonials, travellers, and missionaries. These documents were anthologized and translated in the early 20th century by American scholars. Her method is semiological, with an emphasis on what arises from the corpus, in order to provide a hypothetical description of the political economy and the systems of knowledge at work during the Spanish colonial period in the Philippines.

Neil Shyminsky, BA (York), MA (Toronto)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

Neil's research interests include masculinity, whiteness, and Canadian nationalism; peacekeeping's relation to militarism and securitization; and heroism more broadly. His dissertation work addresses the Canadian national mythology of peacekeeping and the ways in which it is (re)constructed, imagined, performed, and embodied in popular visual representations of the Canadian Forces (CF). His method draws upon Foucault’s concepts of biopolitics and security, as well as Butler's work on identity, especially with respect to
performativity, precarity, and grieveability.

Harini Sivalingam: BA (University of Toronto), LLB (Osgoode Hall Law School), LLM (McGill University)

Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests:

Issues relating to migration and detention of asylum seekers, including immigration and refugee law, international and domestic human rights mechanisms, and national security policies. She is a PhD Candidate in the Graduate Program in Socio-Legal Studies.

Michael Skinner, Honours BA (Toronto), MA (York)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

Peace negotiations; peacebuilding; the engagement of state and capital with labour, peasant, Indigenous, and other movements; interpretations of democracy; and geopolitical strategy. His current research investigates the relationship between peacebuilding and imperialism in Central America. In 2004, Michael conducted an investigation of peace accord and labour code violations in Guatemala. He comes to York from parallel careers as a musician-composer and as a labour union educator. Michael has received a York Entrance Scholarship, the Packer Award for Social Justice, a Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies-Beattie Research Award, and the Woodsworth-Bronfman Gold Award.

Alexander Todd, Honours BA (Queen’s)

Reseidence: Keele Campus, York University  

Research Interests:

Environmental justice; political ecology; social movements; water security. Alex’s MA research investigates water insecurity in Durban, South Africa and resident/NGO responses and contributions.