PhD students

Alongside my alma mater listed below, I have also studied at L’Institut d’Études Sciences Politiques de Paris and the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Conservatoire for Dance and Drama. Additionally, I have worked in collaboration with colleagues across several contexts, including the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, the British Library, Utrecht University, and Goldsmiths, University of London.

I am also currently the Secretary on the Political Studies Association’s Early Career Network Committee.

When I’m not working on my thesis, I enjoy gardening, knitting, reading fiction and philosophy, going to the cinema, the theatre, and dancing

Thesis

Title: All the women are white, all the Blacks are men, but what about the greens? – an intersectional analysis of UK environmentalism

My project works to further flesh out the links and gaps amongst de/postcolonialism, feminism, environmentalism, and social movement studies. Through interrogating the experiences, views, and praxis of social movement actors, my research aims to increase transnational learning amongst environmentalists in relation to inclusive action and philosophies of environmentalism.

My research is funded through the CHASE Doctoral Training Partnership from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Academic qualifications

• PhD Politics at Goldsmiths, University of London (in progress)
• MA Postcolonial Studies (Distinction) at University of Kent (2019 – 2020)
• BA (Hons) Politics and International Relations (1:1) at SOAS, University of London (2016 – 2019)

Research Interests

Social movements, politics of identity, migration, borders, intersectionality, feminist politics, environmental politics, critical theory, sustainability debates within the cultural sector, comparative politics

Publications

• Hiraide, L.A. (Forthcoming). Living and Resisting Intersectional Oppression Through Ballroom: Dreams and the Dreamlike in Pose (2019). In: Dreams and Atrocity: The Oneiric in Representations of Trauma, Otosaka, D. and Baker, E.R (eds.) Manchester: Manchester University Press.
• Hiraide, L.A. (2022). “Re-centring Radical Rap and R&B: Cardi B and the Black Feminist Politics of Pleasure.” Brief Encounters. 6(6): 27-38. https://doi:10.24134/be.v6il.283
• Hiraide, L.A. (2022). “Ambivalent Borders and Hybrid Culture: The Role of Culture and Exclusion in Historical European Discourses of Migration.” Journal of European Studies. 52(2): 99-110. https://doi:10.1177/00472441221090719.
• Hiraide, L.A. (2022).  “Climate refugees – a useful concept? Towards an alternative vocabulary of ecological displacement.” Politics.  https://doi.org/10.1177/02633957221077257
• Hiraide, L.A. Book Review: Transnational Black Feminism and Qualitative Research: Black Women, Racialization and Migration by Tanja J. Burkhard (2022), June 11th 2022, LSE Review of Books. (Open access)
• Hiraide, L.A. La difficile tâche de définir les réfugiés climatiques, EuropaNova, May 2022. REPRINT. (Open access)
• Hiraide, L.A. The Difficult Business of Defining Climate Refugees. Green European Journal, January 2022. (Open access)
• Hiraide, L.A. 2022. Grounding Environmental Issues in the Social: A Short Response to David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet. the quint: an interdisciplinary quarterly from the north. 14(1): 178-186. (Open access)
• Hiraide, L.A. Black and Southern Feminisms Matter in Global Climate Struggles, E-International Relations, December 2021. (Open access)
• Hiraide, L.A. (2021). “What if we choose not to go back to normal?”. Reset - The Journal. Goldsmiths Racialised Postgraduate Network, Goldsmiths University Press, 1(1): 4-7.
• Hiraide, Lydia Ayame. 2021. ‘Postcolonial’, ‘decolonial’, or ‘anti-colonial’: Does it matter?, New Voices in Postcolonial Studies. (Open access)
• Hiraide, L.A. Book Review: Reimagining Liberation: How Black Women Transformed Citizenship in the French Empire by Annette K. Joseph-Gabriel (2020), March 1st 2021, LSE Review of Books. (Open access)
• Hiraide, L.A. Book Review: Being Property Once Myself: Blackness and the End of Man by Joshua Bennett (2020), January 8th 2021, LSE Review of Books. (Open access)

Albina Lindt’s thesis is dedicated to the study of EU-level renewable electricity and renewable fuels (mainly biofuels) legislation, encompassing the directives of 2001, 2003, 2009 and the ILUC directive. Within this policy area, she focuses on the formulation stage within the policy cycle. This implies a detailed reconstruction of policy-making processes aimed at stipulation of target values and definitions for renewable energy sources – two interrelated policy issues at the core of the directives. Carla pays special attention to the application of policy formulation tools, such as future scenario modelling, for the purpose of decision making. Being more generally interested in the different inputs of EU institutions into the policy formulation process, the overarching goal of the thesis is to assess the driving forces behind the legislative outcome.

Thesis Title 

“Neoliberalism and Puerto Rico from 1980-2016” (Working title)

Bio 

John Paul Belk is a M.Phil/Ph.D. candidate in Politics. His research is centered around political theory and political economy. Within these main areas, he mainly focuses on topics dealing with neoliberalism, debt, coloniality, governmentality, and discourse. Additionally, his work explores the political history of the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, and the U.S.

Summary


My research project will shed light on the nature of neoliberalism through a critical chronological examination of the ideology in Puerto Rico from 1980 to 2016. From this, I will extrapolate a precise conceptual understanding of how neoliberalism has behaved in the island, and settle on a workable definition of the ideology itself, contributing to the conversation about neoliberalism at large. My project will highlight how the ideology shifts and molds to different legal-political realities, how the island’s (post) colonial status has played a pivotal role in regards to neoliberalism, how neoliberalism shaped the state by way of public policy, discourse, and governance, and what its effects of neoliberalism on the island are today.

Academic Qualifications 

M.Phil/PhD candidate in Politics, Goldsmiths, University of London; 2019-present

M.A. in Political Theory, University of York, U.K; 2017

Master’s in Visual Anthropology, University of Barcelona, Catalonia; 2014

B.A. in History, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus; 2012

Thesis

Social Entrepreneurship Discourse(s) in Media, Policy and Practice:
The Case of Germany

Information about me

Philipp is working as a lecturer at the Berlin School of Economics and the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences in the areas of social science, social economy and social entrepreneurship. His research and teaching comprises the intersection of ‘the economic’, ‘the social’ and ‘the political’, leading to investigations of how individuals, organizations or societies are organizing, or might want to organize, economic life. Philipp has published work on critical diversity (management) studies and on feminist perspectives on economics. He is also a trained secondary school teacher.

Research Interests

• The ‘SE field’: social entrepreneurship, social and solidarity economy, social enterprise
• Economics education and the plural economics debate
• Gender and diversity studies

Academic qualifications

• MEd Politics and English for Secondary Education, Freie Universität Berlin
• MA Social Entrepreneurship, Goldsmiths, University of London
• BA International Political Studies, Middlesex University

Teaching

• Business, Organizations and Work (introductory social science course)
• Social Entrepreneurship
• Alternative Business Practices
• Qualitative Research Methods
• 'Human Costs' of Global Markets

Professional activities

Prior to being a lecturer and researcher at the Berlin School of Economics and Law, Philipp has worked at the Berlinale (International Film) Festival, at different startups and in sustainability consulting. Alongside his work in higher education, Philipp is also teaching Politics for students in secondary school (Gymnasium).

Featured work

Kenel, Philipp/Gather, Claudia/Lottmann, Ralf (2018): „Das war noch nie Thema hier, noch nie!“ Sexuelle Vielfalt in der Altenpflege – Perspektiven für ein Diversity Management. Pflege & Gesellschaft, 23 (3), pp. 211-227

Kenel, Philipp (2020): Interdisziplinäre Feministische Impulse für mehr Pluralismus in den Wirtschaftswissenschaften. In: Carl et al. (eds.): Geschlechterverhältnisse im Kontext von Unternehmen und Gesellschaft. Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp. 15-34

Thesis Title & Summary:

My thesis explores the rise of platforms and the financial infrastructures that facilitated it. It seeks to question larger narratives about contemporary capitalist dynamics by building from an analysis of the concrete settings for the creation of capital. I focus on the relationship between venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, and the extent to which techniques of economic valuation link the construction of technological futures with present-day contestations of power.

Academic qualifications:

• MPhil/PhD Politics, Goldsmiths, University of London (2018-present)
• MA International Political Economy, PAIS, University of Warwick (2016-2017)
• BSc Economics, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany (2012-2016)

Research Interests:

Platforms, financialisation, capitalisation

Teaching:

Nils teaches on the 3rd year module 'Finance and Global Political Economy’ (2021-22).

Publications:

Peters, Nils. 2021. The Asset Economy by Lisa Adkins, Melinda Cooper and Martijn Konings, LSE Review of Books. URL: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2021/03/23/book-review-the-asset-economy-by-lisa-adkins-melinda-cooper-and-martijn-konings/

Hanna, Thomas; Lawrence, Mathew; Peters, Nils. 2020. A Common Platform: Reimagining Data and Platforms, Common Wealth Report. URL: https://www.common-wealth.co.uk/reports/common-platform-tech-utility-antitrust

Peters, Nils. 2020. Breaking up the tech giants won’t be enough to rein in their power, Open Democracy. URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/breaking-up-the-tech-giants-wont-be-enough-to-rein-in-their-power/

Thesis Title & Summary:

The Politics of Affect: A new form of Violence Within the Emerging Post-Soviet Democracy.

In this research, I propose a critique of the philosophy of political violence, which – in my view – suffers from highly partisan and equivocal terminology. The thesis will maintain that the typical analyses of violence (W. Benjamin, H. Arendt, M. Foucault etc.), which are often based on the ready-made conceptual distinctions of friend-enemy and institutional-individual, are not sufficient in describing the modern-day politics of affect. Throughout the research, the collapse of the Soviet Union will be used as an example of recent history, which supports my thesis about the philosophy of violence. Even though relatively peaceful, the 1989 revolutions radically changed the ensuing physical, economic, legal and psychological interactions of everyday Post-Socialist politics. For this reason, the 1989 revolutions will be interpreted as extremely violent events insofar as they managed to drastically transform the daily lives of post-Soviet individuals. This research will thus undertake to rigorously document the waves of political events (affects) that made the period of ‘glasnost’ and the ensuing 1989 revolutions so effective (violent). This analytic approach will allow me to interpret violence not merely as a manifestation of a destructive force but also as an index of a long-term sociopolitical transformation. With this in mind, G. Deleuze and F. Guattari’s philosophy will be referenced in order to describe the eruptions of nationalism in post-Soviet states in the 1990s as a collection of powerful ‘refrains’, which introduced new physical restrictions on citizens as well as new legal and ideological regulations. The sudden introduction of democracy and free-market economy in the post-communist Eastern Europe – even though a positive event – will be interpreted as an extended and extremely violent procedure, which forced the now autonomous post-Soviet states to assume new political responsibilities, gain new international allies and formulate new interpretations of their respective cultural histories.

Academic Qualifications / Education:

Ph.D. Candidate., Politics, Goldsmiths University of London, anticipated 2024

Summer School of Critical Theory, Birkbeck, University of London, Summer 2019

M.A., Art and Politics, Goldsmiths University of London, 2019 (With Distinction)

Studied Aesthetics and Politics, California Institute of the Arts, 2018-2019

Studied Philosophy, San Francisco State University, 2017-2018

B.A., Professional Music and Philosophy, Berklee College of Music, 2017 (Dean’s List)

Research Interests:

Continental Philosophy, Biopolitics, Aesthetics, Psychoanalysis.    

Teaching:

‘Contemporary Politics of Gender and Sexuality’ Lecture at the Tolerant Youth of Lithuania Summer

Camp, Molėtai, Lithuania 23/08/2018

‘The Fundamentals of Social Democratic Politics’ Presentation at the Liberal Youth Gathering, Alytus,

Lithuania, 9/07/2018

“The History of Worker’s Rights Movements’ Conference and Discussion at the Social Democratic

Youth Camp, Klaipėda, Lithuania 1/07/2018

‘Bernie Sanders 2016 Presidential Campaign Evaluation’ Lecture at the Social Democratic Youth

Gathering, Klaipėda, Lithuania 20/05/18 ( https://youtu.be/9zMFrEocGqY )

‘Deleuzean Philosophy of Difference’ Presentation and Lecture at ‘Wornpath’, Portland, 22/03/2018

( https://pc-pdx.com/show-detail/117364 )

‘Andrew Culp’s ‘Dark Deleuze’ Presentation at California Institute of the Arts, 13/02/2018

(https://youtu.be/DWYGNiD3PRQ)

‘Chomsky’s Political Philosophy’ Lecture at San Francisco State University 7/11/2017    

(https://youtu.be/kt3fTfXYUGA )

Professional Activities:

Tadas Vinokur is an educational content creator at Flicker Theory Reviews (www.youtube.com/tadasvinokuras)

Publications:

Vinokur, Tadas: “For a New Terminology of Violence”, ‘&&& Platform’ Journal, 2019 August

Vinokur, Tadas: “Multitude and Its Discontents”, ‘&&& Platform’ Journal, 2019 September

Thesis: Egypt’s Desert Capital

Egypt relied for most of its 5000-year old history on the Nile river and its fertile green valley.

Only in recent decades did the Sahara Desert that spans the vast majority of the country’s surface, turn into a space of tremendous wealth, investment and speculation: new cities and gated compounds designed to expand the living space of millions of urbanites, a brand-new capital city, new resort towns along the coastal shorelines, new and expanding industrial zones for retail, manufacturing and trade, the expansion of extractive industries and mining zones as well as major land deals for some of the continent’s largest wind and solar parks supplying for an ever-growing (carbon-free) energy demand.

The research looks at the legal, political and economic processes involved in reconfiguring the material-discursive structures of the desert landscapes from ‘wasteland’ frontier into tradable, ecological capital.

It sheds light onto forms of administration, land rights and ownership, technologies of geo-engineering and planning, labour practices, questions of sovereignty and territoriality, finance and political ecology of natural resources, the local military economy and its tools.

Ultimately, it tries to address questions upon the rights of access to and use of natural resources, their capitalization and who benefits from these processes.

This research is funded with the CHASE DTP scholarship by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK.

Academic qualifications

• MA International Studies, Goldsmiths, UK
• BA Media Culture, Bauhaus University Weimar, Germany
• BA Communication Studies, University Lyon II, France

Research Interests

• Critical spatial practice
• Critical ecology
• Post/de-colonial theory
• Media of geo-engineering
• Middle East

Thesis:

‘Feminist cybersecurity and gender-based violence: an ethnography of the Manosphere’

My research explores feminist approaches to (cyber)security and develops a feminist methodology for researching anti-feminist online cultures through the use and theorization of emotions and affect. In my research, I strive to bridge Feminist Security Studies and Cybersecurity, to question dichotomizations of security, and to advance our understanding of anti-feminist cultures.

My research project was awarded a grant (Irisstipendiet) from the Iris Foundation in 2021.

Academic qualifications:

• MPhil/PhD in Politics, Goldsmiths University of London (2020 - in progress)
• MSc in Comparative Political Thought, SOAS University of London (2019-2020)
• BA in Politics, SOAS University of London (2016 – 2019)

I am currently a Mentee at The Institute for Research on Male Supremacism where I am working on a project that reviews security narratives in the Manosphere and the militarisation of cyberspace.

I am also the Treasurer of the Political Studies Association’s Early Career Network (2021/2023).

My research aims to conceive an epistemology of Decolonization based on Synaesthesia. Reinventing the language of politics? Being a Synaesthete, inspired by the social movements and the Voices of the Global South, based on the shift from episteme to practice and on the togetherness of academic and artistic practices and anatomies I shall question Modernity / Modernity Coloniality and the narrative of development. Proposing an Alive-New way of thinking and doing politics I shall activate an autoethnographical narrative and I shall introduce an organic option of PhD formation through the construction (infrastructure) and interrelation of social spaces (Photobook Phenomena) and their actual somatopoiesis – their very birth / creation / production and publication / distribution / circulation.

I am deeply interested in the role of “The Photobook Phenomenon” in contemporary Visual Culture. I am committed to its Social Responsibility, Ethics, Dynamics, Dignity and its Revolutionary Positionality throughout the global democratic decolonial struggles in an era of a tremendous rising of fascism and racism, in an era of extreme inequality.

I shall propose a personal creative synthesis and organization of “The Photobook as a synaesthetic woman body - gaze” based on the interaction between “Personal Documentary Photography” and the Everyday Life Praxis of “Decolonizing the Camera”.

Education / Academic

MA in Fine Arts (Honors) – MAHKU Utrecht Graduate School of Visual Art & Design, Department of Fine Arts, Utrecht, The Netherlands

BA in History & Archaeology (specialization: Archaeology) – Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Faculty of Philosophy, School of History and Archaeology, Greece (2006)

Information about

Despoina Penny Demertzi (born 1980, Athens / Alexandroupolis Greece) is a photographer / visual researcher. Penny is a Synaesthete. Based on her synaesthetic idiosyncrasy and physicality, based on synaesthetic translation and coordination she expresses herself – her work via three interrelated and inter-updated to interrupted levels (porous): visual, sound, “written – hand written”. She communicates herself via Photography – Cartography / Counter-mapping (the synaesthetic woman body - gaze as the border), Art Therapy, Sound Art (soundscapes) - Singing Voices, Dance, Social Choreography, Visual Poetry, Drawing and Performance (intonation of performative and archival to un-archival modes).

She is interested in the organic interrelation between synaesthesia, empathy and class consciousness; in the lived synaesthetic experience of the classroom, the museum and the street. Her work is situated between the political, creative practices and the philosophical; between the cognitive and the psychopolitical.

Teaching, Work Experience and Photography

Penny as a photographer has been selected for and participated in various photography & photobook workshops, seminars, residency programs, portfolio reviews, exhibition initiatives, international platforms and discussions, including with the photographer Anders Petersen, Stratos Kalafatis, Atelier SMEDSBY - JH Engstrom & Margot Wallard, Christian Caujolle, Antoine d’Agata (VOID), FUAM (The Photography Application & Research Center - Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts, Istanbul, Turkey), Alex Bocchetto & Valentina Abenavoli (AKINA BOOKS), Markus Schaden, Hercules Papaioannou, Martin Parr (via Martin Parr Foundation), Studiotessera Photography and STEREOSIS School of Photography, Thessaloniki, Greece.

Penny was Guest Lecturer at both the Departments of Visual Art & Design and Interior Design, Tarumanagara University, Jakarta, Indonesia (courses: Experimental Creation and Aesthetics / Visual communication in public space) and also Guest lecturer at the Department of Fine Arts, Indonesian Institute of Arts, Surakarta (Solo), Indonesia (2013).

PhD studies

During her PhD studies she was selected for and she attended the Decolonial Summer School 2020: “The Communal, The Museum and The End of the Contemporary” - Roosevelt University, Utrecht Summer School, Van Abbemuseum (Decolonial Summer School 2020 - DIPLOMA). She was supported by Goldsmiths Graduate School Fund and Van Abbemuseum Decolonial Summer School Scholarship.

She attended the educational program in “Art Therapy”– University of the Aegean, Greece (2020-21) – CERTIFICATE

She was Visiting Artist at FUAM - The Photography Application and Research Center - Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts, Istanbul, Turkey (2018)

She is selected photographer for the Studio Vortex by Antoine d’ Agata Residency Program, Studio Vortex, Arles, France (2022) / supported by Goldsmiths Graduate School Fund.

Drawing from Science and Technologies, Critical Migration, and Feminist scholarships, she uncovers new power relations in UK Migration Governance. Kaelynn has a background in International Relations and Security Studies and conducted a research project on the impact of surveillance and border regimes. Kaelynn is the current Politics PhD Department Representative (2022-2024). She is an assistant editor for Big Data & Society.                         

Thesis

The Digital Hostile Environment: Technology and UK Migration 

Academic qualifications

• BA Politics and International Relations Goldsmiths, University of London 
• MA International Peace and Security King’s College, University of London
• MPhil/PhD Politics and International Relations 

Research Interests

• Data Feminism
• Algorithmic Power  
• Database Politics 
• Migration Studies 
• Internalised Border Theories

Featured work

PERC Blog 
Native Bias Book Review 
An infrastructural Approach to the Digital Hostile Environment