- Department of Political Science and International Studies
School of Government and Society
Muirhead Tower
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston, Birmingham,
B15 2TT, United Kingdom - +44 (0)121 288 2937
- Poststructuralism, Sex Work, Judith Butler, Social and Political Philosophy, Ethics, Sexuality, and 20 moreGender, Marxism, Theories of Socialism, Feminist Theory, Feminist Philosophy, Solidarity Economy, Political Economy, Economic Sociology, Finance, Globalization, Gender Studies, Africa, International Political Economy, Economic Growth, European integration, Discourse, Michel Foucault, Latin American feminisms, Antiglobalization Social Movements, and Sigmund Freudedit
- I'm a political economist whose work is broadly concerned with debates about globalisation and social justice, partic... moreI'm a political economist whose work is broadly concerned with debates about globalisation and social justice, particularly with respect to the (re)production of gendered and sexualised power relations. I welcome applications from potential PhD students in the fields of international political economy, globalisation, global ethics, and gender and sexuality studies.edit
As ongoing controversies over commercial sex attest, the relationship between capitalism and sexuality is deeply contentious. Economic and sexual practices are assumed to be not only separable but antithetical, hence why paid sex is so... more
As ongoing controversies over commercial sex attest, the relationship between capitalism and sexuality is deeply contentious. Economic and sexual practices are assumed to be not only separable but antithetical, hence why paid sex is so often criminalized and morally condemned. Yet, while sexuality is highly politicized in moral terms, it has largely been overlooked in the discipline devoted to the study of global capitalism, international political economy (IPE). Likewise, the prevailing field in sexuality studies, queer theory, has frequently sidelined questions of political economy. This book calls for critical scholarship to challenge the economy/sexuality dichotomy as it not only structures disciplinary debates but is part and parcel of capitalism itself.
Capitalism's Sexual History brings IPE and queer theory into close dialogue to explore how the division between economy and sexuality has been historically produced to appear both natural and moral. By examining sex work in Britain, Nicola J. Smith draws on in-depth archival research to chart a history of capitalism's sexual relations from medieval times to the present day. She shows how capitalist development was made possible by the appropriation of unpaid sexual labor that relied, in turn, on the repression and production of paid sex. By tracing the historical construction of boundaries around sex and work, this book exposes how capitalism has long profited from the notion that the sexual and economic spheres can and must be kept apart. In so doing, it offers a distinctive contribution to the study of sex and work as well as to wider scholarly, activist, and policy debates about political economy, reproductive labor, gender equality, and sexual justice.
Capitalism's Sexual History brings IPE and queer theory into close dialogue to explore how the division between economy and sexuality has been historically produced to appear both natural and moral. By examining sex work in Britain, Nicola J. Smith draws on in-depth archival research to chart a history of capitalism's sexual relations from medieval times to the present day. She shows how capitalist development was made possible by the appropriation of unpaid sexual labor that relied, in turn, on the repression and production of paid sex. By tracing the historical construction of boundaries around sex and work, this book exposes how capitalism has long profited from the notion that the sexual and economic spheres can and must be kept apart. In so doing, it offers a distinctive contribution to the study of sex and work as well as to wider scholarly, activist, and policy debates about political economy, reproductive labor, gender equality, and sexual justice.
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Sex work is a subject of significant contestation across academic disciplines, as well as within legal, medical, moral, feminist, political and socio-cultural discourses. A large body of research exists, but much of this focuses on the... more
Sex work is a subject of significant contestation across academic disciplines, as well as within legal, medical, moral, feminist, political and socio-cultural discourses. A large body of research exists, but much of this focuses on the sale of sex by women to men and ignores other performances, practices, meanings and embodiments in the contemporary sex industry. A queer agenda is important in order to challenge hetero-centric gender norms and to develop new insights into how gender, sex, power, crime, work, migration, space/place, health and intimacy are understood in the context of commercial sexual encounters.
Queer Sex Work explores what it might mean to ‘be’, ‘do’ and ‘think’ queer(ly) in the study and practice of commercial sex. It brings together a multiplicity of empirical case studies – including erotic dance venues, online sex working, pornography, grey sexual economies, and BSDM – and offers a variety of perspectives from academic scholars, policy practitioners, activists and sex workers themselves. In so doing, the book advances a queer politics of sex work that aims to disrupt heteronormative logics whilst also making space for different voices in academic and political debates about commercial sex.
This unique and multidisciplinary volume will be indispensable for scholars and students of the global sex trade and of gender, sexuality, feminism and queer theory more broadly, as well as policymakers, activists and practitioners interested in the politics and practice of sex work in local, national and international contexts.
Queer Sex Work explores what it might mean to ‘be’, ‘do’ and ‘think’ queer(ly) in the study and practice of commercial sex. It brings together a multiplicity of empirical case studies – including erotic dance venues, online sex working, pornography, grey sexual economies, and BSDM – and offers a variety of perspectives from academic scholars, policy practitioners, activists and sex workers themselves. In so doing, the book advances a queer politics of sex work that aims to disrupt heteronormative logics whilst also making space for different voices in academic and political debates about commercial sex.
This unique and multidisciplinary volume will be indispensable for scholars and students of the global sex trade and of gender, sexuality, feminism and queer theory more broadly, as well as policymakers, activists and practitioners interested in the politics and practice of sex work in local, national and international contexts.
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There is a substantial body of scholarship on the role of discourses in producing the neoliberal politics of austerity, but this has tended to leave untouched the question of how the household might be implicated in such discourses. This... more
There is a substantial body of scholarship on the role of discourses in producing the neoliberal politics of austerity, but this has tended to leave untouched the question of how the household might be implicated in such discourses. This article argues that the introduction of various austerity programmes in the aftermath of the financial upheavals of 2008-9 has produced a new normalisation of the British household, and that much of this centres on particular narratives surrounding the concept of waste. Offering a genealogy of waste, we contend that the language and very politics of austerity are in part made possible through longstanding, historic discourses of household waste, and yet the concept of waste is in itself being reconfigured and reimagined in and through the language of austerity. We argue that such discourses serve to naturalise the systemic inequalities and structural violences of neoliberal capitalism, for they render the poor both individually culpable for their own poverty and collectively culpable for Britain’s economic and social crisis.
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This themed section takes as its starting point the premise that the body matters in International Political Economy (IPE) and presents four original articles which support and illustrate this ontologically critical and, perhaps,... more
This themed section takes as its starting point the premise that the body matters in International Political Economy (IPE) and presents four original articles which support and illustrate this ontologically critical and, perhaps, provocative position. Although feminist scholarship has undoubtedly gained a place at the table in IPE, it is curious that one of the most important concerns, and contributions, of feminist IPE – that global capitalism is marked upon, and forged through, bodies – has not emerged as a major preoccupation for the discipline more broadly. This themed section presents what we believe is a strong corrective to that inattention and, in so doing we hope to begin to set out an exploratory agenda for the body to be both foundational and fundamental to contemporary IPE.
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The analysis of global sexual economies has emerged not only as an important area of enquiry in its own right but also as part of a broader feminist agenda to re-map the conceptual and empirical terrain of the study of global capitalism.... more
The analysis of global sexual economies has emerged not only as an important area of enquiry in its own right but also as part of a broader feminist agenda to re-map the conceptual and empirical terrain of the study of global capitalism. Yet 'few have explicitly addressed how heteronormativity itself underscores their own research conclusions about sexual consumption and identities [nor] the limiting nature of masculinities and femininities as inscribed in cultural and institutional practices [and] arrangements of intimacy' (Lind 2010a: 49). This chapter considers what it might mean to queer the study of global sexual economies and argues that it is not enough simply to add queer and stir to the study of commercial sex by including discussion of non-normative sexual identities and practices. Rather, it takes up the overarching theme of this edited collection to contend that we also need to do queer to (instead of just looking at what it means to be queer in) globalisation and capitalism by revealing and contesting the heteronormative gender logics that continue to frame scholarship on, and political debates about, global sexual economies. Yet, while commercial sex can itself be viewed as being ‘outside the (hetero)norm’ (Smith and Laing 2012: 517), it both subverts and (re)produces gendered, sexualised, racialised and classed power relations.
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Sex work is a subject of significant contestation across academic disciplines, as well as within legal, medical, moral, feminist, political and socio-cultural discourses. A large body of research exists, but much of this focuses on the... more
Sex work is a subject of significant contestation across academic disciplines, as well as within legal, medical, moral, feminist, political and socio-cultural discourses. A large body of research exists, but much of this focuses on the sale of sex by women to men and ignores other performances, practices, meanings and embodiments in the contemporary sex industry. A queer agenda is important in order to challenge hetero-centric gender norms and to develop new insights into how gender, sex, power, crime, work, migration, space/place, health and intimacy are understood in the context of commercial sexual encounters.
Queer Sex Work explores what it might mean to ‘be’, ‘do’ and ‘think’ queer(ly) in the study and practice of commercial sex. It brings together a multiplicity of empirical case studies – including erotic dance venues, online sex working, pornography, grey sexual economies, and BSDM – and offers a variety of perspectives from academic scholars, policy practitioners, activists and sex workers themselves. In so doing, the book advances a queer politics of sex work that aims to disrupt heteronormative logics whilst also making space for different voices in academic and political debates about commercial sex.
Queer Sex Work explores what it might mean to ‘be’, ‘do’ and ‘think’ queer(ly) in the study and practice of commercial sex. It brings together a multiplicity of empirical case studies – including erotic dance venues, online sex working, pornography, grey sexual economies, and BSDM – and offers a variety of perspectives from academic scholars, policy practitioners, activists and sex workers themselves. In so doing, the book advances a queer politics of sex work that aims to disrupt heteronormative logics whilst also making space for different voices in academic and political debates about commercial sex.
Research Interests:
There is something queer (by which we mean strange) going on in the scholarly practice of political science. Why are political science scholars continuing to disregard issues of gender and sexuality—and in particular queer theory—in their... more
There is something queer (by which we mean strange) going on in the scholarly practice of political science. Why are political science scholars continuing to disregard issues of gender and sexuality—and in particular queer theory—in their lecture theatres, seminar rooms, textbooks, and journal articles? Such everyday issues around common human experience are considered by other social scientists to be central to the practice and theory of social relations. In this article we discuss how these commonplace issues are being written out of (or, more accurately, have never been written in to) contemporary political science. First, we present and discuss our findings on citation practice in order to evidence the queerness of what does and does not get cited in political science scholarship. We then go on to critique this practice before suggesting a broader agenda for the analysis of the political based on a queer theoretical approach.
Research Interests: Discourse Analysis, Gender Studies, Queer Studies, Marxism, Queer Theory, and 17 morePolitical Science, Reproduction, Gender and Sexuality, LGBT Issues, Gender, Feminism, Judith Butler, Structuralism/Post-Structuralism, Abortion, Sexuality Studies, Maternity, Queer, Twentieth-Century Australian History, Critical Race and Whiteness Studies, Lesbian and Gay History, Citrizenship, and Sexualtiy Gender and National Identity
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Body/State brings together original essays addressing various aspects of the evolving interaction between bodies and states. While each essay has different empirical and/or theoretical focus, authors consider a number of overlapping... more
Body/State brings together original essays addressing various aspects of the evolving interaction between bodies and states. While each essay has different empirical and/or theoretical focus, authors consider a number of overlapping themes to appreciate the state's engagement with, and concern about, bodies. Divided into five parts, the first part, 'Bodies Modified and Divided' considers how the production, regulation, policing and maintenance of borders (physical, social, sexual, political, religious, etc.) are used to enable or constrain the physical (re)shaping of the body. Part two, 'Capital Bodies', extends the state's concern with the flows of bodies that make up the nation to consider how they are enrolled in the complex structures of capitalist exchange that form the basis for maintaining and contesting a set of relationships between states and markets. Part three, 'Deviance and Resistance', examines both how states seek to discipline ‘non-normal’ bodies and appreciates the capacity of changes in the socio-cultural meaning and nature of bodies to resist and/or escape states. Part four, ‘Sovereignty and Surveillance’, develops themes of deviancy and resistance by considering the impact of new technologies both on the intimate regulatory reach of states into and across bodies and on the nature of embodiment itself. Finally, Part five, ‘The Body Virtual’, examines the impact of new technologies and online spaces both on the intimate regulatory reach of states into and across bodies and on the nature of embodiment itself. A varied collection of essays that address important and complex topics in a readable and creative way.
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Research Interests: Globalization, Commonwealth History, Africa, Discourse, International Political Economy, and 7 moreSmall States, Small Island Developing States, World Trade Organization, International Relations, Security of Small States, International development, especially in relation to small island states, Small and middle powers, and Small powers and small states
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Research Interests: Business Ethics, Globalization, Corporate Social Responsibility, International Law, Human Rights, and 13 moreVirtue Ethics, Corporate Governance, Natural Law, Social Justice, Philosophy Of Law, Neoliberalism, Social Exclusion, Environmental Sustainability, Ethics and economics, Power, International Strategy, Soft Law, and Global Economic Governance
Research Interests: Globalization, Utopian Studies, Social Justice, Neoliberalism, Social Exclusion, and 9 moreSocial Justice Issues, Power, Structural Violence, Ethics of international relations, Development Policies, Globalization and Human Rights, Subsistance and Security Rights, Applied Ethics Especially Development Ethics, and Alternative Globalization
In recent times, issues surrounding change have become increasingly important in the study of political analysis. This is especially true within strains of new institutionalism such as historical institutionalism and the ‘Varieties of... more
In recent times, issues surrounding change have become increasingly important in the study of political analysis. This is especially true within strains of new institutionalism such as historical institutionalism and the ‘Varieties of Capitalism’ approach. However, although this has led to a sensitising towards the temporal dimension, the spatial dimension has been relatively ignored. This is arguably problematic, as a fuller understanding of space and the spatiality of social and political relations would lead to more coherent and accurate analyses of political phenomena that currently characterise historical institutionalism. Indeed at an ontological level, drawing on work within the natural sciences and geography, it is impossible to talk of time without reference to spatiality and of space without reference to temporality. This short article reviews some of the more prominent historical institutionalist literature that deals with change and renders explicit the problematic conceptualisation of space, and consequently time, which underpins their analyses. Drawing on Massey and Sayer, it proceeds to outline briefly a relational conception of space and the difference that space makes to political analyses.
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Abstract. Recent years have seen growing interest in the political power of ideas, especially in debates about globalisation and European integration. As is now widely noted, constructions of globalisation and European integration may... more
Abstract. Recent years have seen growing interest in the political power of ideas, especially in debates about globalisation and European integration. As is now widely noted, constructions of globalisation and European integration may play a powerful causal role in shaping policy prescriptions across Europe. Yet, while a substantial body of theoretical literature has pointed to the need for sustained empirical analysis of such discourses, little systematic and comparative analysis has been undertaken into policy makers' attitudes towards globalisation, European integration and the relationship between the two. This article presents the initial findings of a survey of elite political attitudes to globalisation and European integration in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The authors develop and apply a theoretical schema for the classification and mapping of such discourses. Their analysis reveals, on the one hand, the range and diversity of discourses of globalisation and European integration among elite political actors and, on the other, the continued prevalence of specific conceptions (and indeed misperceptions) of globalisation in particular that have now been challenged empirically. They identify a series of core tensions and contradictions within elite political discourse in both the United Kingdom and Ireland. This suggests a certain frailty in the prevalent understanding of globalisation to which elite political actors would otherwise seem committed when confronted with its distributive consequences.
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The fact that Britain will, at most, be a late signatory to the single European currency means that the strategic deliberations it faces in deciding whether to enter EMU are rather different to those of earlier entrants. However, this... more
The fact that Britain will, at most, be a late signatory to the single European currency means that the strategic deliberations it faces in deciding whether to enter EMU are rather different to those of earlier entrants. However, this crucial point is lost in almost all discussion of the subject. To date, the academic debate has been dominated by what we term ‘prospective accountancy’, in which a series of abstract counterfactuals ostensibly inform a stylised cost–benefit analysis. This article moves beyond such an approach by combining conjectures about the specificities of the British case with a concrete analysis of the experiences of the Eurozone member whose economy appears most closely to resemble Britain’s: namely, Ireland. The comparative dimension of our work facilitates more empirically-based analysis of the merits and demerits of British entry into EMU. Yet, it is important not to lose sight of the limits of an exclusively comparative approach, for the British growth model is qualitatively different to that of other European Union economies. British growth since the early 1990s has been consumption led, and this in turn has been fuelled to a considerable degree by the release of equity from the housing market. The likely impact of EMU on the British economy will be determined to a significant extent, then, by its effect upon this key catalyst of British growth. Sadly, no retrospective comparison can inform such an assessment.
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This article engages with debates about the trajectory of contemporary European political economies, emphasising in particular the need to map processes of policy change over time (by placing contemporary developments in historical... more
This article engages with debates about the trajectory of contemporary European political economies, emphasising in particular the need to map processes of policy change over time (by placing contemporary developments in historical perspective) and space (by considering a variety of policy areas). The article then explores these issues with respect to the Irish case. Placing more recent developments within historical perspective, it argues that the trajectory of the Irish state is not best characterised in terms of a shift from one state form (the ‘activist state’) to another (‘the competition state’). Rather, the path of Irish economic and social policy has been both highly complex and (at times) contradictory, so that change is best characterised in terms of the ebb and flow of tendencies and counter-tendencies rather than in terms of a shift between state forms.