I am a Teaching Fellow in Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick.
I recently submitted my PhD thesis at Royal Holloway, University of London. My PhD focuses on bisexual+ people seeking asylum in the United Kingdom and France.
More broadly, I am interested in queer and feminist International Relations, and critical migration/border studies.
My great love is textiles and fibre art. I also grow food at home and in community with Fieldwork.
My first journal article “Queer Lives during Conflict in Northern Ireland: Deconstructing the “Two Communities” Model” in International Feminist Journal of Politics demonstrates that queer people during conflict can both help us deconstruct normative and binary understandings of identity, and work to show the wider public the contingency of such identities.
Laura Sjoberg and I have co-authored a chapter in Security Studies: An Applied Introduction on “State Security” which debunks the myth of the state as a provider of security and argues that state security theorists often obscure the insecurity of states and the insecurity they hide within them.
I collaborated with Migrants’ Rights Network (MRN) on their report on “Bisexuality, Biphobia and Migration” as part of their Who is Welcome? Gender Queerness and Migration series. MRN also supported Victoria Gerrard, Lizzie Hobbs and I in producing a training resource for migration support staff and volunteers entitled “Negotiating Gender and Sexuality in Frontline Migrant Support Services” which has now been used by more than 20 organisations.
Warwick: 2025-2026: Introduction to Politics (PO107); Political Research in the 21st Century (PO102); Exploring International Security (PO135)
Royal Holloway: 2022-2024: Politics Outside the West (PR2460); 2022: Race, Gender and Queer Philosophy (PY2900)
With Victoria Gerrard, Lizzie Hobbs and Migrants’ Rights Network, I won £3,000 funding for a project we ran with migrant support workers on preparing for and responding to issues around gender and sexuality in their organisations. This involved two workshops and producing the above training workbook.
I assisted with James Sloam and Kaat Smets’s knowledge exchange project with local and civic authorities, and civil society organisations on marginalised young people’s political participation. The report from this project, “Pathways to Participation for Marginalised Young People“, is available here.
I also worked on the Border Narratives project at the University of Warwick 2018-2021.
ainebennett[at]gmail[dot]com
Aine Bennett 