Other News

Dr Trevor McCrisken, Associate Professor, US Politics and International Studies, is making a number of media appearances this week, covering the US Presidential Election.

Pre-election

Dr McCrisken was interviewed on Monday on the Trish and Jo Breakfast Show on BBC Coventry & Warwickshire Radio. You can listen at the following link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04d6zny. The interview starts at the 1h19m mark.

Henry Riley of the RAW Speech Department interviewed Trevor McCrisken to get his academic view on the US Election:

On election day, Trevor appeared on TRT World, being interviewed by Shiulie Ghosh:

Post-election

Dr McCrisken appeared on Al Jazeera following Donald Trump's victory:

Another appearence on TRT World, followed:

Jennifer Philippa Eggert recently held a workshop based on her research on women and war for young Palestinian refugees at a UNRWA vocational training centre in Lebanon.

The workshop took place on the 28th October, and was part of a CBRL-funded one-week research trip to Lebanon.

PAIS Teaching Fellow Rhys Crilley has had an article published in Critical Studies on Terrorism. The paper is co-authored with Raquel da Silva, a colleague from the University of Birmingham, and it contributes to current debates about everyday narratives of security.

Specifically, the article explores how members of the public answer the question ‘Why do British citizens join the conflict in Syria’ on social media sites and in response to online news articles. The authors argue that online comments are important in producing the discursive environment for making sense of British foreign fighters and what should be done in response to them.

One of the major findings is that there is a tendency to view British foreign fighters as being purely motivated by religion, and there is also a belief that British foreign fighters should be responded to through exceptional measures.

The paper discusses the implications of such perceptions, and the authors highlight how problematic misconceptions about Islam and Muslims are not just disseminated through elite and media discourse, but through everyday narratives published by members of the public online.

The article can be viewed at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2016.1237011

 Annie Machon

“MI5: Spies, Lies and Whistle-blowers"

Thursday 3rd November

5.15 in OC1.05 – Oculus - New Teaching Building

As a former intelligence officer with MI5, Annie Machon has a rare perspective on the inner workings of governments, intelligence agencies and the media, as well as the wider implications of calls for increased openness and accountability in public and private sectors. In her lecture, Annie will consider the place of Whistle-blowers and explore the tensions between democracy, security and intelligence.

Maria Koinova has recently been interviewed for IAffairs about the ERC project "Diasporas and Contested Sovereignty."

The interview discusses the emergence of the idea for the ERC project "Diasporas and Contested Sovereignty" out of a previous research program on conflict studies; patterns of conflict and cooperation regarding Armenian diaspora mobilization for genocide recognition during an entire century; and the role of diaspora ministries in transnational diaspora politics. The conversation also mentions the work of individual researchers within the larger project, in the context of conducting interviews in 10 languages, the development of inter-coder discussions, and an original dataset from interviews with diaspora activists across Europe in preparation for the forthcoming cross-national survey.

The interview can be read at: http://www.iaffairscanada.com/2016/diasporas-and-contested-sovereignty-an-interview-with-prof-maria-koinova