In this talk, Linda Åhäll draws on her past research to try to explain how she does what she does as a feminist security studies scholar interested in understanding logics of violence. Or perhaps rather, how she now understands what it is that she actually does, what she always has done, but only has come to think of as a more coherent methodology more recently. It is about identifying, and trying to understand, various political puzzles, often by analyzing the visual and emotional. Methodologically, it is a story about ‘sensing the political’. She will start by sharing how her academic journey began and how she felt she was just ‘making stuff up’ when trying to understand the political puzzle of gendered agency in violence. Then she will discuss two political puzzles of logics of violence in more detail: The political puzzle of militarization; and the political puzzle of misogyny. She will first explain how she senses a political puzzle and then share how she has ‘solved’ the puzzles. The talk ends with a call for creativity, and possibly, a horse. Curious?

Dr Linda Åhäll is Senior Lecturer in Peace and Development Research in the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg. Her PhD was awarded from the University of Birmingham, UK. Between 2012-2019 she was Lecturer in International Relations at Keele University, UK. She is a feminist security studies scholar with a keen interest in visual politics and the politics of emotion, and often draw on examples from popular culture or the everyday as empirical illustrations. She is the author of Sexing War/Policing Gender; co-editor of Gender, Agency and Political Violence and Emotions, Politics and War. She has published articles in journals such as International Political Sociology, Security Dialogue, Cooperation and Conflict and also written several chapters in textbooks aimed at teaching, some of which specifically on methodology.

During the course 2022-23, IBEI has organised a series of research seminars, which normally take place once a week. Check the 2022-23 programme