Research areas
Ali Watson is Professor of International Relations and Managing Director of the Third Generation Project. Originally trained as a macroeconomist at the University of Dundee, during her time at St Andrews her focus in teaching and research has increasingly been based around an examination of the rights of marginalised actors and communities. This includes a large body of work on the place of children in the international system including a call, in 2006, for International Relations as a discipline to recognise the significance of children and their childhoods as sites of knowledge. This interest in sites of political agency has extended also to an examination of craft as a resistance practice and to home as a site of political resistance. Since 2013 she has been co-developing, with her research partner Bennett Collins, a methodology focused upon 'doing IR differently' by working to unpack and then challenge the ways in which academia reinforces existing structural power relations, including with projects based in North America and East Africa.This work has been funded by the British Academy, National Geographic, and by the Global Challenges Research Fund. In 2016, Collins and Watson created the Third Generation Project, a think tank focused upon education for climate justice that is based in the School of International Relations. In parallel with this, their current research focuses upon the role of education as a resistance practice. The focus on 'doing IR differently' is also reflected in Watson's own pedagogical practice at St Andrews where she teaches at sub-honours, honours and postgraduate levels and believes that the classroom is a critical political space and a potential site of co-learning for both teacher and student rather than a site of domination. In 2019 she was awarded an OBE for services to education.
PhD supervision
- Iliana Ilieva
Selected publications
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Open access
Solidarity as subversion: attempting climate justice practice within the Neoliberal University
Collins, B. & Watson, A., 23 Sept 2024, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Journal of International Political Theory. OnlineFirst, 13 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Centring the demand for critical climate education
Watson, A. M. S. & Collins, B., 9 Nov 2023, Children, childhoods, and global politics. Beier, J. M. & Berents, H. (eds.). Bristol: Bristol University Press, p. 210-224 16 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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Open access
Refusing reconciliation with settler colonialism: wider lessons from the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Collins, B. & Watson, A., 1 Feb 2023, In: The International Journal of Human Rights. 27, 2, p. 380-402 23 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Centralizing childhood, remaking the discourse
Watson, A. M. S., 14 Jun 2020, Discovering Childhood In International Relations. Beier, M. (ed.). Palgrave Macmillan, p. 243-261 19 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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Open access
"Home" in peace and conflict studies: a site of resistance and of reform
Watson, A., 6 May 2019, In: Peace and Conflict Studies Journal. 26, 1, 3.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Ethiopia
Watson, A. M. S., Collins, B. & Ochalla, N., 2017, The Indigenous World. IWGIAResearch output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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The impetus for peace studies to make a collaborative turn: towards community collaborative research
Collins, B. & Watson, A. M. S., 29 Dec 2017, Ethnographic peace research: approaches and tensions. Millar, G. (ed.). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 89-113 25 p. (Rethinking peace and conflict studies).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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Children and Peace
Collins, B. & Watson, A. M. S., 2016, The Palgrave Handbook of Disciplinary and Regional Approaches to Peace. Palgrave Macmillan, p. 206-219Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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Protecting the Seas to Save the Land: The Fight Against the Fossil Fuel Industry in the Gulf and its Implications for the Nation
Watson, A. M. S. & Collins, B., 2016, Intercontinental Cry.Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Article
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The Effect of Agro-business on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Sovereignty in Ethiopia
Collins, B. J., Watson, A. M. S. & Ochalla, N., Nov 2016, Quezon City, Philippines : People’s Coalition for Food Sovereignty.Research output: Other contribution