Chris Hesketh is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations (International Political Economy). He received his BA, MA and PhD all from the University of Nottingham. Before joining Oxford Brookes in 2012 he taught at the University of Nottingham and at Birkbeck College, University of London. He has an inter-disciplinary research agenda that combines international political economy, the historical sociology of international relations, political geography, political theory and Latin American studies. So far, his interests have been in the following inter-related areas:
- The geographical development of capitalism, or how capitalism produces a particular kind of space. In particular he has been interested in the problem of uneven and combined development within the global economy.
- Questions of state and class formation in Latin America linked to colonial and neo-colonial structures of power. Specifically here he has utilised the work of Antonio Gramsci and neo-Gramscians scholars, drawing on key Gramscian concepts such as hegemony, historical bloc and moreover, passive revolution to understand the development of Mexico in the 20th century.
- Indigenous resistance to neo-liberalism and the formation of 'counter-spaces'. Theoretically this draws heavily from the work of Henri Lefebvre, whilst the empirical focus has been mainly on the southern Mexican states of Oaxaca and Chiapas via an engagement with the Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca) and the Zapatista movement.