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. 

Kirill P. Akimov, BA Honours (York), MA (York)

Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests:

New Russia’s political economy; European energy security and dependency; International Relations; Russian foreign policy; Eastern European geopolitics and post-communist socio-economic transformations.

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, and has a forthcoming publication on the 'violent dialogue' between Hamas and the Israeli State. His dissertation is exploring the fight for Al-Quds/for Jerusalem. He holds a SSHRC doctoral fellowship award, and has previously held the George G. Bell Scholarship at YCISS.

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."

Jodi Burkett, BA Honours (Toronto), MA (McGill)

Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests:

Social movements, race, and nationality in twentieth century Britain. She is interested in how people on the political fringes (radical left and extreme right), understood and conceptualised the increasing ethnic and racial diversity of Britain in the 1960s. She is a York Entrance Scholarship recipient for 2004-2005, a recipient of the Albert Tucker Memorial Award in 2006, and a recipient of a 2006-2007 Post-Graduate Research Award sponsored by YCISS.

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:

Political sociology; citizenship studies; surveillance studies. Her dissertation focuses on the use of social hierarchies (gender, race, class) and citizenship regimes in the securitization and policing of borders in North America. She has published in Surveillance and Society and has a chapter forthcoming in the edited collection Exploring Neoliberalism: Power, Social Relations, Contradictions. She was a recipient of a Canada Graduate Scholarship for 2005-2008 through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

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

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:
Critical, feminist, and post-colonial approaches to security; feminist theories of women and war; the politics of identity and difference as it relates to security; politics of resistance and organizing as non-traditional approaches to security building. Her most recent work involves questioning the reliance of processes of militarization on constructions and manipulations of masculinity and femininity and the implication of marriage and housework in security and liberation discourses. She is also currently interested in examining parallels between conceptualizations of “terrorism” and militarism as well as the current politics of “leisure” and prostitution among soldiers in Afghanistan. She received a York Entrance Scholarship in 2005.

Maya Eichler, BA Honours (University of Vienna), MA (York)

Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests:

Critical and Feminist IR; feminist political economy; gender, nation, and nationalism; 'new wars'; Soviet and post-Soviet transformations; environmental politics. Her dissertation research examines gender, militarization, and post-communist transformation in Russia.

Jessica Foran, BA Honours (McMaster), MA (York)

Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests:

Poststructural, feminist and postcolonial approaches to security; (re)productions of subjectivity and state; discipline, torture, imprisonment and the body; the (im)possibilities of sovereign exceptionalism; the politics of exceptionality and violence; binary constructions of war as related to memory and trauma; militarization; human (in)security. Her current work considers the impact of Canadian detention practices on the (re)shaping of Canadian sovereignty, and specifically seeks to challenge the dominant frames of exceptionality/normality and political/bare life that continue to inform the study of detainees and detention practices within the “war on terror”. This research examines the relationship between Afghan and security certificate detainees in order to bring attention to the social relations of power that heirarchize bodies, and the productive discursive and material functions that this provides for the Canadian state.

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.

Zhengfen (Alice) Hu, BA (St. Thomas), MA (Brock)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

International Relations theory (especially Alastair I. Johnston’s Cultural Realism) and the role of ethics in international security, East Asian regional order (security and political economy), China’s foreign policy, and energy security. She is interested in the constructivist/normative interpretations of IR. Her research problemizes how a change in identity (China as a “great/responsible power”) may impact on policy change (towards multilateralism).

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.

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.

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”.

Geneviève LeBaron, Honours BA (The Evergreen State College), MA (York)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

Free/unfree labour; imprisonment; social reproduction; the body. Her dissertation juxtaposes two unfree labour regimes which have re-emerged in the neoliberal United States-- prison labour and highly exploited domestic labour-- and contends that these are made manifest through coercion and the disciplining of human bodies and draw on logics of colonialism and slavery to (re)produce gender, class, and racial hierarchies central to the social reproduction of capitalism. She was a recipient of the Graduate Fellowship for Academic Distinction for 2006 and 2007, and currently holds a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship.

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.

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 ofcounterterrorism, 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.

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

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

Use of traditional and non-traditional approaches to security, international humanitarian law, and applied ethics. She is interested in the politics of missile defence in East Asia and the role of nuclear deterrence in South Asia. Her present focus is on the role of the International Non- Governmental Organizations, especially the International Committee of the Red Cross, in constituting multilateral security regimes against landmines, small arms, and child soldiers. She is a recipient of a 2004-2005 George G. Bell Doctoral Scholarship sponsored by YCISS.

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 currently the recipient of a SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship (2009-2012) and of 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.

Sarah Newman, Honours BA (Queen's), MA (York)

Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests:

The HIV/AIDS epidemic; discourses of HIV/AIDS; the politics of knowledge production; mechanisms of governance; identity production, as well as critical, feminist, historical materialist, and postcolonial theory. She received a 2004-2005 York Entrance Scholarship.

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, development theory, and new imperialism. He is interested in the appropriation of economic surplus and questions of underdevelopment in the Global South. His research includes a project on ethnicity and conflict in Ghana, on oil extraction in the Gulf of Guinea, and on the creation of the US Africa Command.

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.

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

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

Critical geopolitics; feminist, postcolonial and queer theory; theories of nationalism and transnationality; space, power and knowledge; cultural studies; Her dissertation addresses recent debates on global biopolitics and deterritorialization and examines in particular the role of 'sexuality' as a racialized form of neoliberal governmentality in the US 'war on terror.' 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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Carmen Sanchez, BA (Laval)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

Critical security studies; conflict and post-conflict reconstruction in Afghanistan; Soviet and Russian politics. She is interested in how pop culture helps to circulate and construct specific myths (understandings) related to IR theory and historical events.

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.

Yukari Seko, BA (Hitotsubashi University, Japan), MA (York)

Residence: Keele Campus, York University

Research Interests:

Migration and (in)security, temporary/seasonal labour in Canada, social in/exclusion, mobility and identity, identity production, transnational citizenship, diaspora, tourism, mobilized Self. Her recent research examines the lives and labour of Japanese temporary workers in Canada in regard to emerging global residentship, the issue of identity deficit, and social in/exclusion within Canada-Japan bilateral relationship.

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.

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.

Karen Walker, BFA, BA, MA (Calgary)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests:

Existentialism and phenomenology; critical theory; Hegel.

Melissa Autumn White, BA (Calgary), MA (York)

Residence: YCISS, York University

Research Interests: Transnational sexualities; critical citizenship and multicultural studies; queer, trans, feminist and postcolonial theory; qualitative research methods; affect; archives; psychoanalysis.  Her dissertation explores affective and political economies at the heart of the regulation of transnational queer
migration in a Canadian context. A PhD Candidate in Women's Studies, she is a recipient of the Susan Mann Dissertation Fellowship, and has held SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarships (Master's and Doctoral). Melissa was awarded the John O'Neill distinction for teaching excellence in Sociology at York in 2005, and received a North American Mobilities grant to visit the Department of Women's Studies at the University of Arizona in 2008.