I am a Professor in International Political Economy. Prior to joining the University of Warwick in 2009, I studied at the University of Sheffield where I received my PhD in 2008.

For 2024/25 I will be co-Director of the Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies.

Research interests

• International trade and development
• Global governance of labour and land rights
• Political economy of agriculture, food and diet
• Capitalism and everyday life

Research funding and impact

Co-investigator on ESRC Standard Grant (2015-2018, £400k) on 'Working Beyond the Border: EU Trade Agreements and International Labour Standards'.

• Impact supported by University of Warwick Impact Fund (2016, £8k) on 'Toward a Progressive UK Trade Policy' and led to preparation of REF Impact Case Study on Democratising Trade Policy for REF2021

Principal investigator on Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship (2010-12, £50k) on 'Social Justice in the Sugar Cane Industry' and ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship (2009, £74k) on 'The Global Political Economy of Sugar'.

• Impact supported by University of Warwick ESRC Impact Acceleration Award (2015, £1k) on 'Sustainable Sugar and Global Standards: The Workers’ Perspective' and led to submission of REF Impact Case Study on Regulating Global Trade and Finance for REF2014

Teaching and supervision

For 2024/25 I am a lecturer and seminar tutor for The Making of Economic Policy (EC304) and International Political Economy of Everyday Life (PO2E4).

I am part of the editorial team for the website I-PEEL: International Political Economy of Everyday Life and the related project with Monash University (2022-2024) 'Global Groupwork: Cross-Border Student Projects on the IPE of Everyday Life'. The first output was a special issue of student articles on COVID-19 and the International Political Economy of Everyday Life published in Reinvention journal.

I have supervised the PhD theses below. Please get in touch if you are interested in working together on a thesis topic that overlaps with my research interests.

• The Discontented Farmer: State-Society Relations and Food Security in Rural Tanzania (Marika Mura, completed 2016)
• Uneven Development and the Governance of Agricultural Commodity Booms: The Case of Soybean in South America (Maria Giraudo, completed 2018)
• Recasting Rights in the Caribbean: The Politics of the Barbadian Flyingfish Fishery (Lisa Soares, completed 2019)

• Cashless Welfare Payments and Everyday Life: A Study of South Africa and Australia (Luke Bantock, completed 2019)

• Externalisation of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy in Georgia (Laura Gelhaus, completed 2020)

• Supranational Law, State Sovereignty and Regional Integration: The Caribbean Court of Justice and the Evolution of the Caribbean Community (Safiya Ali, completed 2023)

Prizes

• Warwick Awards for Public and Community Engagement (WAPCE) Rising Star 2023
• I-PEEL website awarded 2022 Special Achievement in International Studies Online Media by the ISA Online Media Caucus
• 'Governing Labour Standards through Free Trade Agreements: Limits of the European Union's Trade and Sustainable Development Chapters’ awarded Journal of Common Market Studies Best Article Prize 2019
• Sugar listed as a 2015 BBC Food Programme Book of the Year
• University of Warwick Social Sciences Early Career Researcher Impact Champion 2013
• Sugar: Refined Power in a Global Regime shortlisted for the 2010 BISA IPE Group Book of the Year

Reviewing and examining

I have reviewed for the following journals: Antipode, Critical Studies on Security, Environmental Politics, Geoforum, Journal of Agrarian Change, Journal of Peasant Studies, New Political Economy, Politics and Governance, Review of International Political Economy and Review of International Studies.

I have been external examiner of PhD theses at the University of Middlesex (October 2023), the University of Leeds (Nov 2018), the University of West Indies (Nov 2017) and the University of Manchester (May 2017). I have also served as external examiner of MA programmes at the University of Birmingham (2024-2029) and Birkbeck University (2021-2022).