My research is broadly placed within critical political geography, with links also to cultural and social geography. More specifically, I am interested in questions of identity, political practice, and statehood. My current work explores how state representatives interpret and articulate discourses of identity, and how this may condition political practice; previously I have researched youth identity and political perception. As such, my research centres on the intersections of homelands and territoriality, identity and belonging, geopolitics and nationalism. In particular, I am interested in everyday practices and embodiment among so-called ‘elites’, narratives and personal ‘stories’, and how professionals of statecraft see it from ‘within’ – speaking to critical work that seeks to ‘people’ our conceptualisations of e.g. the state and territory.
My research and publications to date has focused on the Arctic region, and the ways in which this rapidly changing space intersects with geopolitics and identities. While my most recent project looked at the practices of Arctic statecraft, the empirical focus has meant engaging also with geographies of energy and resource extraction, environmental issues, and indigenous and postcolonial topics.
Additionally, I am currently involved in the VELUX foundation-funded project ‘Politics Sustainability and Postcoloniality in the Arctic’, co-led by Associate Professor Ulrik Pram Gad (Copenhagen University) and Associate Professor Jeppe Strandsbjerg (Copenhagen Business School). I am also part of the project “‘Observing’ the Arctic: Asian States and the (Geo) Politics of Involvement in the Arctic Council” co-led by Professor Klaus Dodds (Royal Holloway, University of London) and Assistant Professor Chih Yuan Woon (National University of Singapore), funded by the British Academy International Partnership and Mobility Grant.
Research group membership
State and Society
International Political Theory
Culture, Identities and Divisions