I study the political geographies and geopolitics of post-Cold War international relations.
Although I sometimes dabble in the Danish/German borderlands and the Middle East, most of my work is on two topics:
The first is the building of nation-states in modern Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Basically, I am interested in what happens when you make new international boundaries and borders where there weren;t any before.
The second is the place of religion, atheism and the church in war and peace.
I also study what it means to work in institutions like universities, schools and churches. Drawing on African-American theological anthropology I explore what happens when you treat people as mere ‘human resources.’
Finally, I’m interested in academic freedom, and how it is under threat from a variety of sources including foreign authoritarian states, domestic ideological pressures, university managers, the UK government, and neoliberal funding regimes.