Käte Hamburger Kolleg / Centre for Global Cooperation Research
Schifferstraße 44
47059 Duisburg
Deutschland
Phone: +49 (0)203 379-5247
Fax: +49 (0)203 379-5276
Vita
Since 08/2015 | University of Glasgow School of Social and Political Sciences Professor of International Relations |
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08/2016 - 08/2023 | University of Glasgow School of Social and Political Sciences Senior Lecturer in International Relations |
08/2010 - 07/2016 | University of Glasgow School of Social and Political Sciences Leverhulme Research Fellow |
08/2009 - 07/2010 | Aberystwyth University Department of International Relations ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow |
08/2008 - 07/2009 | University of Leeds School of Politics and International Studies Lecturer in International Studies |
Awards
ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (2022-23): ‘Let’s Talk About Race: Tackling Racism in the University Community’
Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2019): “Empathy under Fire: ‘Hearts and Minds’ and the Politics of Empathy”
2018 Winner of the British International Studies Association Excellence in Teaching International Studies Prize
Research Project at the Centre
Making War and the Politics of Empathy: A Postcolonial Exploration
The politics and practices of empathy in military contexts have received little systematic attention in International Relations wherein research has predominantly focused on conflict transformation, peace initiatives, dialogue projects, and non-violence, with the assumption that greater empathy leads to more peaceful and ethical relations. Captured by the notion of ‘winning hearts and minds’, this research examines how military actors engage with, co-opt and deploy affective relations to engage with civilian communities in situations of occupation and war. The project explores the way in which empathy and ‘knowledge of others’ becomes central to war-making and neo-colonial forms of world order. Engaging with debates across anthropology and the social sciences, the project focuses on the contested understandings of the role that population-centric counterinsurgency (COIN) played in the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Seminars and Conferences
British International Studies Association Annual Conference, Glasgow, June 2023 (co-organiser)
'Emotions Across the Disciplines' (Co-Director) workshop, University of Glasgow, May 2023
'Violence and Emotions', presented at International Studies Association Annual Conference, Montreal, March 2023
'Feeling what for whom? COIN and the politics of empathy in Iraq and Afghanistan', presented at British International Studies Association Annual Conference, Newcastle, June 2022
“Custodians and conduits” of counterinsurgency: women as historical and contemporary affective military terrain, SSSHARC Global Symposium, ‘Gender, (In)security, and Temporalities of Violence’, University of Sydney, September 2019
Empathy in War: U.S. Counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan, Visual Politics Strategic Research Program, POLSIS, University of Queensland, February 2019
Pedagogies of Discomfort: Experiential Learning and Emotional Journeys in Israel and Palestine, International Studies Association, San Francisco, 2018
Publications
Head, N. (forthcoming). 'Women helping women': Deploying Gender in US counterinsurgency wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Security Dialogue. |
Head, N. 2020. ‘A “pedagogy of discomfort”? Experiential learning and conflict analysis in Israel/Palestine’, International Studies Perspectives 21:1, 78–96. DOI: 10.1093/isp/ekz026 |
Head, N. 2020. ‘Contesting emotional governance: Empathy under fire in the Israeli public sphere during Operation Protective Edge’, in Simon Koschut (ed.), The Power of Emotions in World Politics (Abingdon: Routledge), pp.113-129. |
Head, N. 2020. ‘Sentimental politics of structural injustice? The ambivalence of emotions for political responsibility’. International Theory, 12:3, 337-357. DOI: 10.1017/S175297192000007X |
Head N. 2019 (with Amanda Russell Beattie and Clara Eroukhmanoff). ‘Introduction: Interrogating the ‘everyday’ politics of emotions in international relations’, Journal of International Political Theory, 15(2). Co-editor of the Special Issue on ‘Interrogating the ‘everyday’ politics of emotions in international relations’. DOI: 10.1177/1755088219830428 |
Matthies-Boon, V. and N. Head. 2018. ‘Egypt's Double Trouble: On Young Activists' Broken Lifeworlds and Political Trauma’, Journal of International Political Theory, Vol 14(3), pp. 258 – 279. DOI: 10.1177/1755088217748970 |
Head, N. 2016. ‘Costly encounters of the empathic kind: a typology’, International Theory, 8(1), pp.171-199. DOI: 10.1017/S1752971915000238 |
Head, N. 2016. ‘The Politics of Empathy: Encounters with Empathy in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories’, Review of International Studies, 42(1), pp.95-113 DOI: 10.1017/S0260210515000108 |
Head, N. 2012. Justifying Violence: Communicative Ethics and the Use of Force in Kosovo, (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp.vii-236. (also available online: 2017, eISBN: 9781526130235) |