International Political Economy, Social Movements, Civil Disobedience, Contestation, Austerity, Neoliberalisation

My research is located within the field of International Political Economy and particularly Critical Political Economy. It looks at political contestation of global processes like neoliberalisation, austerity and climate change. This includes both non-violent contestation by social movements and parliamentary forms of contestation. My research draws on a historical materialist theoretical framework with a focus on political agency and contestation. I am particularly interested in how social movements use civil disobedience to achieve their aims and how they justify their law-breaking. 

My current research explores climate change activism and particularly Extinction Rebellion (XR) and the use of civil disobedience. It studies the strategies and discourses of civil disobedience in contemporary climate change activism.

My ESRC-funded PhD thesis, Contesting Austerity through Civil Disobedience: The PAH and the Spanish Housing Crisis, analysed the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH, Platform for the Mortgage-Affected) and examined what it means to contest austerity and how PAH does this.