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.

• –present Lecturer in Political Geography, Newcastle University

• 2003 Cambridge, Geography

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