I am currently completing my first book, At War with Women: Military Humanitarianism and Imperial Feminism in an Era of Permanent War (under contract, Cornell University Press). This book examines how the US military's enlistment of development as a counterinsurgency weapon in the post-9/11 era produced sweeping changes in military gender relations. At War with Women draws on ethnographic research on US military bases, archival investigation into the colonial and Cold War past used to assemble current military doctrine, and interviews with women who served on all-female counterinsurgent teams during an era when women were banned from direct assignment to ground combat units. You can read about some of these shifts in military gender relations in an article on "military femininity" in Gender, Place and Culture.
My recent series of articles examine different facets of the post-9/11 militarization of development. An article in Development and Change looks at how militarized development has accelerated the trend of for-profit development contracting. I am particularly interested in how colonial and Cold War histories are used in military instructional settings. In relation to this question, I have conducted primary archival research in Haiti, a site of continual US intervention whose history is used in present-day military instruction. A recent article in Critical Military Studies examines Haiti's role in US military knowledge production.
Based on a collaboration with Jordan T. Camp, I am also working on a research project that looks at how racist constructions of the enemy have worked to achieve consent to counterinsurgency at various turning points in U.S. imperial history from the development of small wars doctrine in the 1930s to renewal of counterinsurgency in the post-9/11 wars. You can read our article, "Counterinsurgency reexamined: racism, capitalism, and US military doctrine," in Antipode.
In a more historical dimension to my scholarship, an article in the Journal of Historical Geography examines how an education project in early 20th century US-occupied Haiti provoked a strike so large it precipitated the marines' withdrawal. I have also published an article on peacekeeping in Haiti in the Journal of Haitian Studies, focusing on the ways in which emerging powers represent themselves on the global stage of the United Nations. My second book project builds on this historical and Haiti-based scholarship. My next book project, "Genealogies of Humanitarian Violence," is a history of the present entanglement of militarism and humanitarianism in Haiti.
Before becoming interested in the militarization of development and humanitarianism, I completed two short ethnographic research projects in South Africa, the first focusing on trade liberalization in Cape Town's garment industry, and the second focusing on post-apartheid migration into South African cities. My research in Africa was closely intertwined with my experience working in the non-governmental and grant-making sectors before entering graduate school.
Before becoming interested in the militarization of development and humanitarianism, I completed two short ethnographic research projects in South Africa, the first focusing on trade liberalization in Cape Town's garment industry, and the second focusing on post-apartheid migration into South African cities. My research in Africa was closely intertwined with my experience working in the non-governmental and grant-making sectors before entering graduate school.
