Staff profile
Dr Will Plowright
Assistant Professor of International Security
| Affiliation | Telephone |
|---|---|
| Assistant Professor of International Security in the School of Government and International Affairs |
Biography
I joined Durham University as a Lecturer in Peace & Conflict Studies in January 2022, before becoming Assistant Professor in International Security in June of the same year. Prior to that, I completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Amsterdam in 2021, and a PhD in Political Science at the University of British Columbia in 2018. Additionally, I spent aproximately 10 years working in the humanitarian sector, for Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières, in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Sudan, DRC, CAR and others. I worked in responses to armed conflict, mass displacement, detention, and disease outbreaks (including cholera, ebolavirus and COVID-19). I primarily worked in rhe operational management of humanitarian interventions. Prior to this, I worked with smalled organizations in contexts in disaster response in Haiti, Uganda amonst other places.
My research span two areas; (1) non-state armed groups in armed conflict; and (2) NGOS and the politics of humanitarian assistance. I am the author of the book Armed Groups and the Pursuit of International Legitimacy: Child Soldiers in Intra-State Wars (Routledge, 2021), for which I conducted extensive research among armed groups in Syria and Myanmar. I am also the author of The War on Rescue: The Obstruction of Humanitarian Assistance in the European Migration Crisis (Cornell University Press, 2024), which included extensive research among humanitarian activists in Europe and North Africa.
I am currently working on an updated edition of the Routledge Companion to Humanitarain Action and book manuscript entitled Roads to Disaster; Humanitarian Corridors in Theory and Practice.
Research Interests
- Intra-state conflict / civil war
- Non-state armed groups
- Humanitarian assistance
- The politics of NGOs
- International intervenism
Publications
Books:
The War on Rescue: The Obstruction of Humanitarian Assistance in the European Migration Crisis (Cornel University Press, 2024).
Armed Groups and International Legitimacy: Child Soldiers in Intrastate Conflict (Routledge, 2021).
Book Chapters:
“Obstruction” in The Routledge Handbook of Critical Philanthropy and Humanitarianism. K. Mitchell & P. Pallister-Wilkins, eds. (Routledge, forthcoming 2022).
“Our Margins, Their Frontlines: Research with Child Soldiers in Armed Groups in Syrian, Myanmar & Uganda.” Pp 317-228 in S. Bastien & H.B. Holmarsdottir, Eds., Youth at the Margins: Experiences from Engaging Youth in Research Worldwide. Sense: Amsterdam, 2015.
Blogs
“The Imperial Past and Decolonial Future of Humanitarianism” (Alternatives Humanitaires, 2024)
"Ukraine: aid workers were forced out of Syria – the same thing could happen in this war" (The Conversation, Mar. 2022).
"Russian Warship, Go F*** Yourself: A Short History of Wartime Taunts" (Small Wars Journal, Mar. 2022)
“A Canadian coordinator pays tribute to local MSF staff in Central African Republic — and to one particularly exceptional colleague.” (MSF Canada, May 2017)
Peer-Reviewed Articles:
“Humanitarianism’s Thin Red Line: Armed Escorts in Theory and Practice” Journal of Humanitarian Affairs. 5-3 (2024):
“The Securitization of Child Soldiers by Burmese Insurgents: Preliminary Conclusions from the Field.” Journal of Military and Strategic Studies. 15-1 (2013): 1-26.
“Smoothing the Contours of Violence: The failures of DDR in Sierra Leone.” Human Security Perspectives. Fall, 2011.
“’When it is my turn, there will be no one to bury me’: Ideology, social mobility, and individual agency in the Cambodian Genocide.” URJHS. Vol 8, No 1. 2009.