Dr Kandida Purnell
Some of the courses I teach:
INR4100: Introduction to International Relations
DEV5200: Research Methods and Practices
Biography
With a decade of in-class and online University teaching experience in the English, Scottish, and US systems, Kandida is now Assistant Professor of International Relations and has previously fulfilled the roles of Lecturer in International Relations (Security) at City, University of London, and Teaching Fellow in Politics and International Relations, and Teaching Assistant in Sociology at the University of Aberdeen. Kandida’s research draws and build on contemporary critical, gender, and postcolonial theory to center around the global politics of bodies and takes an interdisciplinary approach towards investigating contemporary patterns and logics of violence and (re/dis)embodiment through cases including the covid-19 pandemic, military and other mass casualty repatriation and commemoration practices, and embodied resistance practices.
Biography
Dr Kandida Purnell is an international political theorist with teaching experience in the UK and US systems. Currently working as Assistant Professor of International Relations at Richmond, The American International University in London, Kandida has previously fulfilled the roles of Lecturer in International Relations (Security) at City, University of London and Teaching Fellow in Politics and International Relations at the University of Aberdeen.
As a commentator at blogs including Duck of Minerva, The Disorder of Things, and Somatosphere, Kandida has recently published on the body politics of the COVID-19 pandemic, hunger strike, war commemoration, and war performance and museumification, Kandida’s monograph Rethinking the Body in Global Politics due for publication on 1st April 2021 with Routledge’s Interventions series. Kandida is also continuing to collaborate with Natasha Danilova and Emma Dolan on the Carnegie-funded ‘War Commemoration, Military Culture, and Identity Politics in Scotland’ project while solo research into ‘Feeling COVID-19’ and ‘Bringing Bodies Back: Repatriation and War Performance within Forever War’ is ongoing.
Publications
- Purnell, Kandida. 2021. ‘Out of Touch, Out of Tune: The Social-Political Construction of Atmospheric Walls during the COVID-19 Pandemic’s First Wave’, Emotions and Society ,vol xx, no. xx,1–18DOI: 10.1332/263169021X16171227433111
- Purnell, K. 2021. ‘Rethinking the Body in Global Politics: Bodies, Body Politics, and The Body Politic in a Time of Pandemic’, Routledge Interventions Series.
- Danilova, N. and Purnell, K. 2020, ‘The ‘museumification’ of the Scottish soldier and the meaning-making of Britain’s wars’, Critical Military Studies. Vol. 6(3-4): 287-305.
- Purnell, K. 2018, ‘Grieving, Valuing and Viewing Differently: The Global War on Terror’s American Toll‘, International Political Sociology, Vol. 12(2): 156-171. Impact Factor: 1.923.
- Purnell, K. and Danilova, N. 2018, ‘Dancing at the Frontline: Rosie Kay’s 5SOLDIERS De-Realises and Re-Secures the Global War on Terror’, Critical Studies on Security, Vol. 6(3): 370-375.
- Purnell, K. 2015, ‘Body Politics and Boundary Work Nobodies on Hunger Strike at Guantánamo (2013–2015)‘, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, Vol.39 (4): 271-286.
- Purnell, K. 10/09/2020. ‘Fit for purpose? Boris Johnson’s two bodies and the UK “Better Health” strategy’, Somatosphere, URL: http://somatosphere.net/2020/johnson-two-bodies-better-health.html/
- Bird, J, Lawton, K and Purnell, K. 2010, ‘Green and Decent Jobs: The case for local action’, Institute for Public Policy Research, URL: https://www.ippr.org/publications/green-and-decent-jobs-the-case-for-local-action
Public Engagement
- ‘Rethinking the Body in Global Politics’, Symbolic Objects in Contentious Politics BISA event, University of Aberdeen: Invited Speaker;
- ‘Terrorism in the UK’, European Law Students’ Association (ELSA) UK, King’s College, University of Aberdeen, Oct 2017: Invited Panelist;
- ‘The Scottish Warrior’, Festival of Social Science, Gordon Highlanders’ Museum, Nov 2017: Chair;
- ‘Bodies, Body Politics, Bodies Politics’, Talk for University of Aberdeen’s Politics and International Relations Society (PIRSOC), Sept 2018, Invited Speaker.
- Guest Blogger, Duck of Minerva (2016-2017):Recent Blog posts:
- Purnell, K. 13/09/2017, ‘Why Americans Never Forget to Remember 9/11’ Duck of Minerva, URL: http://duckofminerva.com/2017/09/why-americans-never-forget-to-remember-911.html
- Purnell, K. 22/10/2017, ‘The Politics of Grief and the Forever War: Who Speaks for the Fallen?’, Duck of Minerva, URL: http://duckofminerva.com/2017/10/the-politics-of-grief-and-the-forever-war-who-speaks-for-the-fallen.html
Conference Participation
- ‘”Life–or something like it?”’, Roundtable organized by Auchter, J, ISA Annual Conference, Honolulu 2020 (tbc).
- ‘Affect, Feminism, and Embodied World Politics’, Discussant, ISA Annual Convention, Honolulu, June 2020 (tbc).
- ‘“A Groundbreaking Resurrection”Public Performance and Choreographed Conflict via 1418NOW’, BISA Annual Conference, London, June 2019.
- ‘Army@Fringe and the Performance of War in Public’, EISA Annual Conference, Prague, Sept 2018;
- ‘Global Security: Noticing, under-noticing, un-noticed’, 2016 BISA Annual Conference, Edinburgh, June 2016;
- ‘American bodies, American boundaries: Visibility, invisibility and dead American soldier-bodies’, EISA Annual Conference, Giardini – Naxos, Sicily, Sept 2015;
- ‘Dead soldier-bodies and/in international relations’, ISA Annual Conference, New Orleans, LA, US, Feb 2015;
- ‘Dead Bodies and Boundary Work: An Investigation into the American Politics of Dead Soldier-Bodies’, Junior Scholar Symposium, ISA Annual Conference, Toronto, Canada, March 2014;
- ‘Body/Border’, ISA North East Conference, Baltimore, US, Nov 2012;
- ‘Bare life and the possibility to resist’, ‘Politics and Knowledge’, Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice, University of Nottingham, UK, Jan 2010.
- ‘Diffusing, confusing or transfusing gender? The paradoxical politics and practices of the international diffusion (or otherwise) of gender’, ISA Annual Conference, San Francisco, CA, US, April 2013.
- ‘Violated boundaries and bodies that move: The hungry bodies of Bahía de Guantánamo’, On violence, Re-Thinking Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zadar, Croatia, Sept 2013;
- ‘Inhumane tendencies and the politics of life and death itself: What can bodies do?’ EWIS, Gediz University, Izmir, Turkey, May 2014.
