Dr Ben Whitham

Dr. Ben Whitham (pronouns: he / him) joined the Department of Politics and International Studies at SOAS in 2021, as Lecturer in International Relations. Ben’s research interests cut across the fields of international political economy, international political sociology, and critical security studies. He is particularly interested in the relationship between intersecting socio-economic inequalities and insecurities on the one hand, and forms of state violence usually understood as aiming at ‘security’ on the other. Specifically, much of his research – stemming from his PhD on the UK’s ‘War on Terror’ – has explored the forms and functions of the post-9/11 rise of global Islamophobia, and its connection to the politics of socio-economic crises and austerity, particularly in the UK context. Recently, and relatedly, Ben’s research has focused on so-called ‘culture wars’ around issues like race and migration, the rise of a new transnational far right, the role of ‘libidinal economy’ in these trends, and the politics of ‘values’ in an age of polycrisis. Ben’s current research project looks at the rise and centrality of the UK’s political and media discourse around small-boat migration from 2019 to 2024, with a particular focus on the libidinal-economic dynamics at stake in the widespread demonisation of ‘small-boat migrants’, and the material impacts of this discourse upon both the lives of asylum seekers arriving on the south coast and on the UK’s wider political economy.

Ben’s research has been published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals and edited volumes, and in 2023 his book Global Politics (co-authored with Andrew Heywood) was published by Bloomsbury. Ben focuses on producing policy-relevant and policy-challenging research, and his research underpinned a REF2021 Impact Case Study. He is an experienced non-academic policy researcher, and has researched, advised, and written for a range of third-sector and non-profit organisations and think tanks, on questions of social policy connected to his research interests, in addition to providing research-informed policy advice to parliamentarians.

Ben’s teaching at SOAS is focused on international theory and foreign policy analysis, in addition to convening the undergraduate dissertation module in politics and international studies. In 2019 Ben won the Political Studies Association’s Bernard Crick Prize for Outstanding Teaching. He previously convened the MSc International Politics at SOAS, and is currently Postgraduate Student Experience Coordinator.  

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