International Relations
The research group aims to be an inclusive and interdisciplinary place for open discussion and collaboration within the study of IR.
Our Expertise
Our research group has a range of expertise including:
- Torture
- Human rights
- Middle Eastern politics
- Sexual and gendered violence
- Asylum and migration
- Creative research methods
- Decolonial thought
- Everyday practices and norms in the international system
- Sexual and gendered violence
- Terrorism
- Global politics of health
- Postcolonial, feminist and Queer theory
- Political Violence
- Disaster relief
Our Research
The International Relations Research Group is interested in a wide variety of cutting edge and topical issues. The group is pluralistic and interdisciplinary in that members adopt a wide range of perspectives from feminist and decolonial thought to historical sociology, and constructivism.
We use a diverse array of methods including participatory photo and video projects, archival research, and ethnography. Our members are interested in exploring creative, discursive, and visual methods, and many have experience with Participatory Action Research.
Much of what we do is 'critical' and aims to challenge and confront modes of power, marginalising norms, and dominant discourses. To do this our members draw on a wide range of critical approaches, especially those that seek to decolonise and deconstruct international politics. We also aim to connect our work with the ‘real world’ to ensure that our research is impacting and engaging with current political issues. Our member’s work has been key in shaping discussions on the UN’s Women Peace and Security agenda, masculinities and violence, the use of drones and surveillance, critical terrorism and military studies, and disaster relief and resilience.
Our Projects
Droned Life
Data, Narrative, and the Aesthetics of Worldmaking
This project examines drones’ ongoing implications for socio-cultural life through concepts of imaginaries, aesthetics, and worldmaking, and their use in military and civilian realms through four narrative, worldmaking forms—literature, film, the visual arts, and game design.
Joanna Tidy
2023 - 2027
UKRI
Counter-Terrorism in/by the community
Impacts and challenges
This project aims to conduct an ethnographic study of charities and community-based organisations that have received funding from the UK Home Office to conduct counter-terrorism work, moving away from state-centric security policies and putting forward an alternative understanding of community-led counter-terrorism initiatives.
Amna Kaleem
2023 - 2026
Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship
The impact of federalisation on Nepal's health system
A longitudinal analysis
Funded by the Medical Research Council, Economic & Social Research Council, Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office and Welcome Trust via the Health Systems Research Initiative.
Simon Rushton
2020 - 2024
What do Survivors Want?
A Victim-Centred Approach to Justice for Conflict Related Human Rights Abuses.
This project seeks to redefine justice based on the perceptions and understandings of victim/survivors. We have built a new victim-centred definition of justice, and a framework for justice that sets out new ways of delivering justice.
Helen Louise Turton
2021 - 2024
Biodiversity and Security (BIOSEC)
Understanding Crime, Illegal Wildlife Trade and Threat Finance
Funding: European Research Council Advanced Investigator Grant, £1.8 million
The BIOSEC project will examine claims by national governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that wildlife poaching and trafficking are increasingly being used to fund organised crime and terrorist groups. This three-year project will look into what constitutes an environmental crime, the responses by the European Union to the illegal wildlife trade, and how new technology is being used to tackle poaching and trafficking.
Sheffield academic lead: Professor Rosaleen Duffy
Resilience policymaking in Nepal
Giving voice to communities
Funding: ESRC-DFID Development Frontiers Research Scheme, £300k
An intensive policy-making process is currently underway in Nepal, with significant input from international donors and advisors. Using a participatory video approach, this project aims to address the gap that exists in Nepal between national-level resilience and policy making - undertaken with the support of the international community - and community-level perceptions and expectations. The project will seek to give those most affected by the overlapping challenges of policy, conflict and environmental change a powerful way to engage with, and potentially influence, high-level policymakers.
Sheffield academic lead: Professor Simon Rushton
Improbable Dialogues
Participatory Research as a Strategy for Reconciliation
Improbable Dialogues is a research project developed by an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, the University of Sheffield and the Centre for Popular Research and Education, together with local researchers and organisations. The project is working in three municipalities of Colombia: Tibú, Norte de Santander; Vista Hermosa, Meta; and Buenaventura, Valle del Cauca. From the Department of Politics and International Relations it involves Dr Matthew Bishop, Dr Juan Mario Diaz, Dr Simon Rushton, Dr Helen Turton, and Dr Anastasia Shesterinina.
Based on a multidimensional approach to conflict and reconciliation, Improbable Dialogues seeks to understand the diversity of ongoing conflicts in these communities (conflicts over land, environmental demands, gender claims, demands related to the lack of governance and political participation ) and, through participatory research and the creation of spaces of dialogue, support and strengthen the capacities of local communities and organizations to move towards peace. The research methods used by the team are inspired by Orlando Flas-Borda's work on Participatory Action Research (PAR).
The project is financed by the Newton Fund via the Economic and Social Research Council (Grant Ref. ES / R01096X / 1) and Minciencias (Call 791-2017, Contract 276-2018).
Exploring the longterm consequences of sexual violence in armed conflict
Little is known about the various long-term consequences of sexual violence that occur in conflict settings and therefore what services should be available and what support is needed. This project aims to reveal the multiple intersecting consequences and practices of violence during ‘peace’ so that they can be addressed. Focussing on Colombia, the question this research will ask is how we can gather such knowledge in a way that does no further harm or reduce survivors of sexual violence, or those born as a consequence, to the status of ‘objects to be studied’?
Sheffield academic lead: Dr Helen Turton