The State Power & Globalisation

Spring 2021 Events

‘Rethinking the Body in Global Politics’
Kandida Purnell’s book launch, Wednesday April 14

A roundtable discussion of Richmond Assistant Professor of International Politics, Kandida Purnell’s new book, published with Routledge. With Jessica Auchter (U of Tennessee), Marysia Zalewski (Cardiff), Tom Gregory (Auckland), and Lauren Wilcox (Cambridge).

‘When is a justice campaign over? Transitional justice, ‘overing’ and Bloody Sunday’
Tom Bentley (Aberdeen), 12th April 2021

This article explores the political, strategic and emotional issue of victim groups deciding to continue or discontinue central components of a justice campaign in the aftermath of receiving ‘truth’. Drawing on in-depth interviews, the article focuses on relatives and other stakeholders’ varying positions on (dis)continuing the annual Bloody Sunday commemoration march after the publication of the Report of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry and the UK Prime Minister’s apology for the massacre.

‘Debt and the woman: Pondering extractive relationships that trouble women entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka’s post-war economy’
Anupama Ranawana (Christian Aid/University of Roehampton), 19th April 2021

This lecture applying a feminist and decolonial lens, wonders at new ways to reflect about and beyond this ‘crisis, and thus challenge epistemic and ethical boundaries. In particular, the paper reflects on what is further obscured or silenced- such as caste, gender and religion- within these extractive relationships.

‘The Ideological History of Fascism’
Matthew Feldman, Wednesday April 7

Professor Matthew Feldman is a specialist on fascist ideology and the far-right in Europe and the USA. He has written widely on these subjects, for both academic and general audiences. He has long researched the interaction between politics and faith in the modern world, and has taught these subjects for some two decades to school, undergraduate and postgraduate students. An Emeritus Professor in the History of Modern Ideas at Teesside University, in 2013 Prof. Feldman led Britain’s first unit dedicated to analysis of radical right extremism, the Centre for Fascist, Anti-fascist and Post-fascist Studies (CFAPS), and prior to that, directed the Radicalism and New Media Group at the University of Northampton. He is a Visiting Professor at Richmond, the American University in London, having previously held fellowships at the universities of Bergen (Norway), Birmingham and Oxford (thrice). He is an editor of Wiley-Blackwell’s online journal, Compass: Modern Ideologies and Faith, and co-edits two academic book series Bloomsbury Publishers, Modernist Archives and Historicizing Modernism.

The story of fascism, or rather its birth after WWI, is familiar enough from documentaries and books on the Axis. But that is only part of the story. The nationalist regimes in Italy and Germany can also distort our understanding of fascism. Seen from a centennial perspective, namely that of Mussolini, the first Fascist who successfully marched on Rome in October 1922 and then unveiled totalitarian rule in Italy in 1925, fascism today looks less like history than current affairs. But is it? This talk tries to address these questions by telling a narrative history of fascist ideology.

‘Equality, diversity and inclusion? International volunteering for development in Africa’
Angela Haynes, April 6

Angela Haynes worked in the international development sector for over 25 years in a range of NGOs and is currently based in the Department of Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). There she manages an international research project and is an Associate Tutor.

This talk focuses on her doctoral research, which looks at international volunteering in Africa. She discusses her question, findings, positionality and some of the issues she encountered during the course of looking at professionals of African heritage who travel to Africa to provide free healthcare and thus ‘give back’.

‘Tackling Hate in the Homeland: US Radical Right Counter-Narratives in a time of Renewed Threat’
William Alchorn, Wednesday February 24th

Dr William Allchorn is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Leeds and Associate Director at the Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right. He is an expert on anti-Islamic radical right social movements in the UK. His book, Anti-Islamic Protest in the UK: Policy Responses to the Far Right is published by Routledge. As of August 2020, he has started a new research project, testing violent radical-right extremist narratives and counter-narratives globally. His forthcoming book based on the project, Moving beyond Islamist Extremism – Assessing Counter Narrative Responses to the Global Far Right, is under contract with Ibidem (an imprint of Columbia University Press) and is due for release in Autumn 2021.

This paper gets under the currents of key US radical right extremist groups and their anti-government narratives that they propagate now. Using case study examples, the paper suggests ways forward in tackling US-based radical right violent extremist narratives, concluding with recommendations for security practitioners and policymakers in the Biden administration interested in countering radical right-inspired violence. It is argued that only a mixture of upstream (i.e. counter extremist initiatives aimed directly at individuals in the process of radicalisation) and downstream initiatives (i.e. using trusted individuals and informal civil-society actors to further embed broader-based societal counter-narratives), that the United States will do better in inhibiting the spread of violence within the radical right extremist scene and inoculate citizens from engaging in such activism in the first place.