Audrey Reeves

Audrey Reeves, Assistant Professor

_{Department of Political Science

521 Major Williams Hall (0130)

220 Stanger Street

Blacksburg, VA 24061

540-231-5246 | audreyreeves@vt.edu}

Audrey Reeves is an assistant professor of political science at Virginia Tech. She is currently working on a book manuscript, Affect and World Politics: Governing Bodies, Hearts, and Minds at Museums and Memorials. This work uses feminist theories of affect and emotion to broaden understandings of security governance. Building on feminists’ insistence that politics is embodied, it suggests that security governance includes not only propositional forms of expertise and influence (e.g., military strategy, academic papers), but also affective and experiential knowledges passed on through organized bodily movement. Museum curators and architects intervene in security governance when they orchestrate bodily interactions with museum and memorial spaces. Those interactions generate powerful emotional experiences that shape citizens’ understandings of acceptable and unacceptable militarized activity. Thus, affective expertise plays an important role in democratic deliberation and consensus building surrounding the questions of the legitimate use of force.

Reeves’ embodied and affective approach to the study of security politics draws inspiration from her training in classical and contemporary ballet. Over the past 20 years, she has trained at the Conservatoire de Danse de Montréal (Canada), Dance Area (Geneva, Switzerland), and with 3rd Stage Dance Company (Bristol, United Kingdom), inter alia. Since 2017, she is also a qualified Forrest Yoga Instructor.

Principal Areas of Research Focus

World politics
Affect, emotion, embodiment
Difficult heritage at museums and memorials
Gender, feminism and security governance
Conflict, peace and knowledge

Education

PhD, University of Bristol, United Kingdom
MA, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies
BS, Université de Montréal

Professional Roles

Core faculty: Alliance for Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought (ASPECT)
Faculty affiliate: Women's and Gender Studies
Faculty affiliate: Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention

Publications

Papers and Review Essays

2017. The Women, Peace and Security Agenda and the “Refugee Crisis”: Missing Connections and Missed Opportunities in Europe, Working Paper for the LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Security. With Aiko Holvikivi.

2014. ‘Performance and Political Conflict: Aesthetic Approaches to the Study of Global Insecurities’, on Jenny Edkins and Adrian Kear (eds.), 2013, International Politics and Performance: Critical Aesthetics and Creative Practice and K.M. Fierke, 2013, Political Self-Sacrifice: Agency, Body and Emotion in International Relations in Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 8 (4): 394-402.

2014. Review of Carol Cohn’s Women and Wars in International Feminist Journal of Politics 16 (1): 173-174.

2013. Review of Albrecht Schnabel and Anara Tabyshaliva’s Defying Victimhood: Women and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding in St Antony’s International Review 9 (1): 186-188.

Journal Articles

2018, ‘Mobilising Bodies, Narrating Security: Tourist Choreographies at Jerusalem’s Holocaust History Museum’, in Mobilities 13 (2): 216-230.

2012, 'Feminist Knowledge and Emerging Governmentality in UN Peacekeeping: Patterns of Co-optation and Empowerment', in International Feminist Journal of Politics, 14 (3): 348-369.

Re-edited in: Nicola Pratt and Sophie Richter-Devroe, eds., 2013, Gender, Governance and International Security. Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge.

2012. ‘Gender and Private Military and Security Companies’, Journal of International Peace Operations 7 (4), 1: 8-9. With Anike Doherty.

Book Chapters

2018. ‘Auto-ethnography and the Study of Affect and Emotion in World Politics: Investigating Security Discourses at London’s Imperial War Museum’, in Maéva Clément and Éric Sangar, eds., Researching Emotions in International Relations: Methodological Perspectives on the Emotional Turn, Palgrave Macmillan.

2011. ‘Senegal’, in Miranda Gaanderse and Kristin Valasek, eds., The Security Sector and Gender in West Africa: A Survey of Police, Defence, Justice and Penal Services in ECOWAS States, Geneva: DCAF, pp. 203-222. With the Alliance for Migration, Leadership and Development (AMLD).

2008. ‘L’évolution des conflits dans le monde en 2007-2008. Une année de transition’ [The evolution of conflicts in the world in 2007-2008], in Michel Fortmann and Gérard Hervouet (eds), Les conflits dans le monde 2008. Rapport annuel sur les conflits internationaux [Conflicts in the world 2008. Annual report on international conflicts]. Sainte-Foy: Presses de l’Université Laval, pp.10-29. With Michel Fortmann.

2008. ‘Contrôle des armements et non-prolifération en 2007-2008’ [Arms control and non-proliferation in 2007-2008], in Michel Fortmann and Gérard Hervouet (eds), Les conflits dans le monde 2008. Rapport annuel sur les conflits internationaux [Conflicts in the world 2008. Annual report on international conflicts]. Sainte-Foy: Presses de l’Université Laval, pp. 246-261. With Michel Fortmann