Nick Vaughan-Williams

MA (Oxon), MA (Warwick), PhD (Aberystwyth), FHEA

Profile

I am Associate Professor of International Security and Deputy Director of Research in PAIS. Previously, I was Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Exeter, and Temporary Lecturer in International Theory and Security at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth (now Aberystwyth University).

My research is located in International Relations (IR), critical security studies, and contemporary political theory. Most of my work has focused on the changing nature of borders in global politics, and the conceptual problems this poses for theorists of IR, security studies, and political geography. More recently, I have developed interests in the impact of border security practices on migrants, the politics of resilience and critical infrastructure protection, and public opinion on issues relating to international security.

I have published 5 books and over 25 journal articles and book chapters. I have given invited lectures on my research in Denmark, the Netherlands, Pennsylvania, Taiwan, Texas, and the UK. My first monograph, Border Politics, was Gold Winner of the Association for Borderlands Studies Book Award 2011. I am Co-Convenor of the British Academy-funded 'Critical Border Studies' Network and Co-Editor of the Routledge book series Interventions.

Research overview

Current funded projects:

'Public Perceptions of Threat in Britain: Security in an Age of Austerity' (ESRC Small Grant, £99,996.40, co-applicant with Daniel Stevens, University of Exeter). 31 March 2012-31 March 2013 (20% FEC buy-out).

Previously funded projects (select):

'European-East Asian Critical Border Studies' (Joint British Academy-National Science Foundation Taiwan Project Grant, £8,200, with Joyce C. H. Liu, National Chiao Tung University). September 2011.
'Lines in the Sand? Non-Territorial Bordering Practices in Global Politics' (British Academy Small Grant, £5,560, with Noel Parker, University of Copenhagen). 2007-8.

I am currently progressing two inter-related areas of research:

'Marginal Lives: The Security of Mobility and the Biopolitics of Abandonment': a study of the impact of border security policies on migrants.
'Security and the Politics of Resilience': a study of the discourse of resilience, particularly in relation to border security and critical infrastructure protection.

I welcome PhD applications in three main areas:

The geopolitics and biopolitics of homeland security, counter-terrorism, resilience, critical infrastructure protection, global border security practices, and the securitization of migration.
International Political Sociology approaches to sovereignty, subjectivity, security, and the spatio-temporal conditions of contemporary political life.
Any aspect of critical and poststructural theory in the context of IR and security studies.

Completed PhDs:

Dr Sarah Bulmer, 'Securing the Gender Order: Homosexuality and the British Armed Forces' (Primary Supervisor, 2007-2011).

[More..]

Key publications since 2008

Books (select)

Border Politics: The Limits of Sovereign Power (Edinburgh University Press, 2009, 2012)
Critical Security Studies: An Introduction, co-authored with Columba Peoples (London and New York: (Routledge, 2010)
Critical Theorists and International Relations, co-edited with Jenny Edkins (Routledge, 2009)

Journal articles (select)

'Gender, Race, and Border Security Practices: A Profane Reading of 'Muscular Liberalism'' (with Victoria Basham), British Journal of Politics and International Relations (forthcoming 2013)
'Carl Schmitt and the Concept of the Border' (with Claudio Minca), Geopolitics (forthcoming 2012)
'Resilience, Critical Infrastructure, and Molecular Security: The Excess of "Life" in Biopolitics' (with Tom Lundborg), International Political Sociology, 5(4) (December, 2011), pp. 367-383
‘The UK Border Security Continuum: Virtual Biopolitics and the Simulation of the Sovereign Ban’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 28 (November, 2010), pp.1071-1083
‘The Generalised Biopolitical Border? Re-conceptualising the Limits of Sovereign Power’, Review of International Studies, 35(4), (October, 2009), pp.729-749
‘Borders, Territory, Law’, International Political Sociology 4(2) (December, 2008), pp. 322-338