Dr Amanda Chisholm

Dr Amanda Chisholm is a Reader in Gender and Security across both War Studies and Defence Studies.

Her research focuses on the privatisation and decentring of global war-making.  Her work is located at the nexus of Feminist International Relations, Global Political Economy, and Security Studies. She employs ethnographic methodologies to examine the racial and gendered aspects of private military and security companies’ (PMSCs) global operations. Her work is concerned with how gendered and racial logics sustain difference, assign value and reproduce hierarchies amongst these workforces and the ways in which these security market relations involve household labour. Having recently been awarded an Economic and Social Research Council Future leaders’ grant, her current work looks at issues of (un)ethical recruitment practices in unarmed and armed global South security workforces and households.

Dr Chisholm’s research has appeared in International Feminist Journal of Politics, Security Dialogue, Globalizations, Critical Military Studies and International Political Sociology as well as numerous edited volumes on Private Military and Security Companies, Military Research Methods, Gender and the Military, and Gender and Global Political Economy.

Research Interests

• Feminist security studies and  global political economy
• Private Military and Security Companies
• Gender and the military
• Gurkhas
• Ethnography
• Ethical recruitment

Teaching

Gender and Global Politics

Masculinities, Militarism and War Module

Dr Chisholm is happy to Supervise PhD students interested in feminist theory, women peace and security, gender and the military, global security and militarism

Publications

• Chisholm, A. and Eichler, M. (2018) “The Private within the Private: Accounting for the Household in Global Privatisation of Security” International Feminist Journal of Politics
• Davies, M. and Chisholm, A. (2018) “Neoliberalism and Sexual Violence: A Reading of Dollhouse” International Political Sociology
• Chisholm, A. and Tidy, J. (2017) “Beyond the Hegemonic in the study of militaries, masculinities and war” Critical Military Studies. 3(2): 99-102
• Chisholm A. (2017) “Client, Contractor and the Everyday Masculinities in Global Private Security” Critical Military Studies. 3(2): 120-141
• Chisholm A. and Stachowitsch S. (2016) “Everyday Matters in Global Security Supply Chains: A Feminist Global Political Economy Perspective on Gurkhas in Private Security”. Globalisations. 13(6), 815-829. (4 citation)
• Chisholm A. (2014) “ Marketing the Gurkha security package: Colonial histories and neoliberal economies of private security”. Security Dialogue45(4), 349-372. (60 citations)
• Chisholm A. (2014) “ The Silenced and Indispensible: GURKHAS IN PRIVATE MILITARY SECURITY COMPANIES”. International Feminist Journal of Politics 2014, 16(1), 26-47. (20 citations)
• Chisholm, A. (2018). The Myth, The Men, and The Markets: The Gendered Political Economies of Security. In Elias J. and Roberts A. (eds). Handbook on Feminist GPE. London: Routledge. in press.
• Chisholm A., Stachowitsch S. (2017) Military Markets, Masculinities, and the Global Political Economy of the Everyday: Understanding Military Outsourcing as Gendered and Racialised. In: Duncanson, Claire; Woodward, Rachael, (eds.) Palgrave Handbook on Gender and the Military. Palgrave, DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-51677-0_23
• Chisholm, A. (2016) The Culture of Whiteness in Private Security. In: Kinsey, C and Bernestein, J, (eds). Routledge Research Companion in Security Outsourcing. London: Routlege. pp. 257-269
• Chisholm, A. (2016) Ethnography in Conflict Zones: The Perils of Researching Private Security Contractors. In Williams, A, J, Jenkings,  K N, Rech, M F and Woodward, R, (eds.) The Routledge Research Companion to Military  Research Methods. London: Routledge. pp.138-152 (4 citations)
• Chisholm A. (2015) “ From Warriors of Empire to Martial Contractors: Reimagining Gurkhas in Private Security”. In: Eichler, M, (ed.) Gender and Private Security in Global Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.95-113.  

Dr Amanda Chisholm PURE Profile