Staff profile

Louise Amoore is Professor of Political Geography and Deputy Head of Department. Her research and teaching focuses on aspects of geopolitics, technology and security. She is particularly interested in how contemporary forms of data and algorithmic analysis are changing the pursuit of state security and the idea of society. Her most recent book, Cloud Ethics: Algorithms and the Attributes of Ourselves and Others, is published by Duke University Press in Spring 2020. Among her other published works on technology, biometrics, security, and society, her book, The Politics of Possibility: Risk and Security Beyond Probability (2013)examines the governance of low probability, high consequence events, and its far-reaching implications for society and democracy. Louise’s research has been funded by the Leverhulme Trust, ESRC, EPSRC, AHRC, and NWO. She is appointed to the UK independent body responsible for the ethics of biometric and data-driven technologies. Louise is co-editor of the Journal Progress in Human Geography.

Louise's previous projects include her RCUK Global Uncertainties leadership fellowship (2012-2015). Her project 'Securing Against Future Events' (SaFE): Preemption, Protocols and Publics' examines how inferred futures become the basis for new forms of security risk calculus.

She has also conducted ESRC projects on the techniques and technologies of biometric and data-driven borders: 'Contested Borders' (2007-2009), a project within the ESRC's non-governmental public action programme. The work has produced new insights into how contemporary security practices enter and reconfigure public space.

'Data Wars: New Spaces of Governing in the European War on Terror' (2008-12) was a three year ESRC bilateral project in collaboration with Marieke de Goede at the University of Amsterdam. Researchers at Durham and Amsterdam investigated how data elements from the mobilities of people and money become redeployed for preemptive security.

• IBRU: Centre for Borders Research
• Politics - State - Space (PSS)

• Contested Borders: Non governmental public action and the technologies of the war on terror
• Data Wars: New Spaces of Governing in the European War on Terror

• 2018: Forensic Citizens: The Politics of Searching for Disappeared Persons(£94841.00 from ESRC Centre for Social and Economic Research on Innovation in Genomics (INNOGEN))
• 2013: Securing Against Future Events (SaFE), Pre-emption, Protocols and Publics(£375975.00 from ESRC)
• 2013: Securing Against Future Events (SaFE): Pre:emption, Protocols and Publics (additional funds)(£50000.00 from ESRC)
• 2008: BILATERAL NETHERLANDS - DATA WARS(£262208.50 from ESRC)
• 2008: SAFER SPACES(£15380.00 from Epsrc)
• 2007: CONTESTED BORDERS: NON-GOVERNMENTAL(£172321.60 from ESRC)

Authored book

• Amoore, L.A. (2020). Cloud ethics: algorithms and the attributes of ourselves and others. Duke University Press.
• Amoore, L. (2013). The Politics of Possibility: Risk and Security Beyond Probability. Durham: Duke University Press.
• Amoore, L. (2002). Globalisation contested: An international political economy of work. Manchester.: Manchester University Press.

Book review

• Dwyer, Andrew C, O'Grady, Nathaniel, Thornton, Pip, Straube, Till, Gilbert, Emily & Amoore, Louise (2021). Cloud Ethics: Algorithms and the Attributes of Ourselves and Others. The AAG Review of Books 9(3): 36-49.

Chapter in book

• Amoore, L. (Published). Governing By Identity. In Playing the identity card: surveillance, security and ifentifcation in global perspective. Lyon, D. & Bennett, C. New York.: Routledge. 42-56.
• Amoore, L. (Published). Vigilant Visualities. In Observant States: Geopolitics and Visual Culture. MacDonald, F., Hughes, R. & Dodds, K. London.: IB Taurus. 247-266.
• Amoore, L. (2007). There is no Great Refusal: the ambivalent politics of dissent. In International Political Economy and Poststructural Politics. De Goede, M. Basingstoke.: Macmillan.
• Amoore, L. (2006). There is no great refusal: the ambivalent politics of resistance. In International Policial Economy and Poststructural Politics. DeGoede, M. Basingstoke.: Palgrave.
• Amoore, L. (2006). Making the Modern Multinational. In Global Corporate Power. May, C. Boulder, Colorado.: Lynne Rienner. 32-54.
• Amoore, L. (2005). Making the Modern Multinational. In Global Corporate Power. May, C. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.
• Amoore, L. (2005). Invisible Subjects: Work and Workers in the Global Political Economy. In The Political Economy of Unprotected Work. Davies, M. & Ryner, M. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
• Amoore, L. & Langley, P. (2005). Global civil society and global governmentality. In The Idea of Global Civil Society. Germain, R. & Kerry, M. Routledge. 137-155.
• Amoore, L. (2002). Work Production and Social Relations: Repositioning the firm in the international political economy. In Global Unions? Theory and Strategies of Organized Labour in the Global Political Economy. Harrod, J. & O'Brien, R. London.: Routledge. 29-48.
• Amoore, L. & Langley, P. (2002). Process, Project and Practice: The Politics of Globalization. In Critical Perspectives on International Political Economy. Abbott, J. & Worth, O. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Edited book

• Amoore, Louise & Piotukh, Volha (2015). Algorithmic Life: Calculative Devices in the Age of Big Data. Routledge.
• Amoore, L. & de Goede, M. (2008). Risk and the War on Terror. London: Routledge.
• Amoore, L. (2005). The Global Resistance Reader. London.: Routledge.

Journal Article

• Amoore, Louise, Campolo, Alexander, Jacobsen, Benjamin & Rella, Ludovico (2023). Machine learning, meaning making: On reading computer science texts. Big Data & Society 10(1).
• Thylstrup, Nanna Bonde, Hansen, Kristian Bondo, Flyverbom, Mikkel & Amoore, Louise (2022). Politics of data reuse in machine learning systems: Theorizing reuse entanglements. Big Data & Society 9(2).
• Amoore, Louise (2022). Machine learning political orders. Review of International Studies 49(1): 20-36.
• Amoore, Louise (2021). The deep border. Political Geography 102547.
• Amoore, Louise & de Goede, Marieke (2021). Datawars: reflections twenty years after 9/11. Critical Studies on Terrorism 14(4): 425-429.
• Amoore, L. (2019). Doubt and the Algorithm: On the Partial Accounts of Machine Learning. Theory, Culture & Society 36(6): 147-169.
• Amoore, Louise (2019). Introduction: Thinking with Algorithms: Cognition and Computation in the Work of N. Katherine Hayles. Theory, Culture & Society 36(2): 3-16.
• Amoore, L. (2018). Cloud Geographies: Computing, Data, Sovereignty. Progress in Human Geography 42(1): 4-24.
• Amoore, Louise & Raley, Rita (2017). Securing with Algorithms: Knowledge, Decision, Sovereignty. Security Dialogue 48(1): 3-10.
• Amoore, L. & Piotukh, V. (2015). Life beyond big data governing with little analytics. Economy and Society 44(3): 341-366.
• Amoore, L. (2014). Security and the Incalculable. Security Dialogue 45(5): 423-439.
• Amoore, L. (2014). Security and the claim to privacy. International Political Sociology 8(1): 108-112.
• Amoore, L. & Hall. A. (2013). The clown at the gates of the camp: Sovereignty, resistance and the figure of the fool. Security Dialogue 44(2): 93-110.
• Amoore, L. (2013). The Line of Beauty: security’s objects and the form of data. Theory, Culture and Society
• Amoore, L.A. (2011). Data Derivatives: On the Emergence of a Security Risk Calculus for our Times. Theory, Culture & Society 28(6): 24-43.
• Amoore, L. & Hall, A. (2010). Border Theatre: On the arts of security and resistance. Cultural Geographies 17(3): 299-319.
• Amoore, L. & Hall, A. (2009). Taking people apart: digitised dissection and the body at the border. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 27(3): 444-464.
• Amoore, L. (2009). Algorithmic war: everyday geographies of the war on terror. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography 41(1): 49-69.
• Amoore, L. (2009). Lines of sight: on the visualization of unknown futures. Citizenship Studies 13(1): 17-30.
• Amoore, L. (2008). Risk before justice: when the law contests its own suspension. Leiden Journal of International Law 21(4): 847-861.
• Amoore, L. & de Goede, M. (2008). Transactions after 9/11: the banale face of the preemptive strike. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 33(2): 173-185.
• Amoore, L. (2008). Foucault against the grain. International Political Sociology 2(3): 274-276.
• Amoore, L. (2007). Vigilant Visualities: The Watchful Politics of the War on Terror. Security Dialogue 38(2): 215-232.
• Amoore, L. (2006). Biometric borders: Governing mobilities in the war on terror. Political Geography 25(3): 336-351.
• Amoore, L. & De Goede, M. (2005). Governance, risk and dataveillance in the war on terror. Crime, Law and Social Change 43: 149-173.
• Amoore, L. (2004). Risk, reward and discipline at work. Economy and Society 33(2): 174-196.
• Amoore, L. & Langley, P. (2004). Ambiguities of Global Civil Society. Review of International Studies 30(1): 89-110.
• Amoore, L. (2003). Beyond the Trade-off: Ambiguous (Un)employment and the Discourse of Flexibility. Global Society 17(1): 81-87.
• Amoore, L. & Langley, P. (2001). Experiencing Globalization: Active Teaching and Learning and Teaching in International Political Economy. International Studies Perspectives 2(1): 15-32.
• Amoore, L., Dodgson, R., Germain, R.D., Gills, B.K., Langley, P. & Watson, I. (2000). Paths to a historicized international political economy. Review of International Political Economy 7(1): 53-71.
• Amoore, L. (2000). International Political Economy and the 'Contested Firm'. New Political Economy 5(2): 183-204.