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Jess Underwood

Jessica Eastland-Underwood
Early Career Researcher

Jess.Underwood@warwick.ac.uk

Research Interests

Although my PhD research is focused on the USA, I am more broadly interested in everyday political though, economic ideas and racism, including:

  • Economic ideas in everyday life
  • Protest and popular political action
  • Exploring ongoing impacts of colonialism and slavery, particularly colour-blind racism
  • Methods for accessing 'ordinary' political belief (rhetorical analysis, historiography, qualitative interviews, and ethnography)

Current project

In November 2024, I completed my PhD thesis entitled: 'Contesting "the economy": a rhetorical political analysis of anti-lockdown and Black Lives Matter ideological communities.' In my thesis, I found that 'the economy' is a rhetorical device that speaks more intuitively to those aligned with white identity politics and creates obstacles for those advocating for racial justice. Supervised by Matthew Watson and Chris Clarke.

Latest publications

All of my publications are authored as Jessica Eastland-Underwood

Other Activities

    • Co-convenor of the Race, Migration and Intersectionality specialist group with the Political Studies Association
    • Invited Discussant for the Balsillie School of International Affairs and PAIS collaborative seminar on ‘International Development in the Long Duree’, October 2022
    • Co-Founder of the Women in Political Studies early career working group
    • Co-Chair of the 2021-2022 Critical Research and International Political Studies (CRIPS) graduate working group
      • Created two new seminar series: Navigating Research Puzzles & PhD Student Papers
    • Invited to present on the 'Politics of Economic Ideas' panel for the Annual PAIS Research Conference, June 202