About

I am a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Minnesota.

I study organized violence in all its forms, and the connections between organized violence and political ideas more specifically. In my dissertation research I explore the emergence of the term “wartime collaboration” and how occupied societies use the label of “collaborator” to counteract the effect of military occupation and to create a national identity founded on an ethos of resistance and solidarity. Specifically, I argue that as occupying militaries sought to achieve control over the local population – through practices of surveillance and social engineering – the figure of the “collaborator” became more central to acts of resistance. I develop this idea by examining how armed rebel groups depict collaborators in their newspapers, conventions and pamphlets.

My other research deals with the political problems of technological innovation, particularly of military technologies; with subjectivity and subject formations under conditions of colonialism; and with historical interpretive research methods.