Dr Doerthe Rosenow is a Lecturer in International Relations with more than 10 years’ experience of teaching and researching International Relations in Higher Education. She previously lectured at Oxford Brookes University and Royal Holloway, University of London. She holds a PhD in War Studies from King’s College London.

Doerthe focuses on the study of Indigenous and radical Black thought in relation to settler colonialism in International Relations and beyond. She is particularly interested in moving towards understandings of the colonial present as both location-specific and globally connected, leading to complexity, heterogeneity, and also contradictions between different places and histories. Doerthe contributes to these debates via an analysis of historical and present-day transnational solidarity work between German and North American Indigenous activists, and the way this work can reinforce what she calls 'German colonial innocence' - a phenomenon that is related to German (settler) colonial encounters with the Americas.

Previously Doerthe worked on the theorisation and analysis of political struggle in relation to understandings of nature, particularly from perspectives that engage notions of materiality and decoloniality. Her book Un-making Environmental Activism: Beyond Modern/Colonial Binaries in the GMO Controversy was published by Routledge in 2018.

Research

• Indigenous thought and politics in settler colonies (particularly North America)
• Theories and politics of race/racism and anti-racist activism
• Radical Black thought and racial capitalism
• Decolonial thought and decolonial International Relations
• German colonial history and present, particularly in relation to North America
• The global colonial present beyond the Anglosphere
• Transnational solidarity activism

Doerthe’s research is interdisciplinary, crossing over the boundaries of International Relations, cultural studies, Indigenous and Native studies, anthropology, human geography and continental philosophy. She is particularly interested in the study of Indigenous and radical Black thought in relation to settler colonialism in IR and beyond, and, most recently, in how to move understandings of (global) colonialism(s) beyond unitary and homogenous notions grounded in predominantly Anglo-American experiences, towards an understanding of it as complex and heterogeneous.

She has a particular interest in analysing what she conceptualises as 'German colonial innocence', which she analyses at the site of solidarity work between German and North American Indigenous activists and makes sense of through the lens of Black, Indigenous and decolonial thought.

Publications

Books

• Browne, V., Danely, J. and Rosenow, D. (eds) (2021) Vulnerability and the Politics of Care: Transdisciplinary Dialogues, Proceedings of the British Academy, Oxford et.al: Oxford University Press.
• Rosenow, D. (2018) Un-making Environmental Activism: Beyond Modern/Colonial Binaries in the GMO Controversy. London and New York: Routledge.

Research articles (selected):

• Coleman, L.M. and Rosenow, D. (2025), 'On struggle as experiment: Foucault in dialogue with Indigenous and decolonial movement intellectuals, for a new approach to theory', Review of International Studies, 51(1), pp. 84–101. https://doi.org/10.1177/03058298231202554
• Rosenow, D. (2024), 'The violence of settler imperialism, and why the concept of coloniality cannot grasp it', Millennium, 52(2), pp. 171-197. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210523000505
• Coleman, L.M. and Rosenow, D. (2023), 'On struggle as experiment: Foucault in dialogue with Indigenous and decolonial movement intellectuals, for a new approach to theory', Review of International Studies, online first, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210523000505
• Rosenow, D. (2019) 'Decolonising the decolonisers? Of ontological encounters in the GMO controversy and beyond', Global Society, 33(1), pp. 2-99. https://doi.org/10.1080/13600826.2018.1558181
• Ansems de Vries, L., Coleman, L.M., Rosenow, D., Tazzioli, M. and Vásquez, R. (2017) ‘Collective discussion: Fracturing politics (or, how to avoid the tacit reproduction of modern/colonial ontologies in critical thought)’, International Political Sociology, 11(1), pp. 90-108. https://academic.oup.com/ips/article-abstract/11/1/90/3059829?redirectedFrom=PDF

 Book chapters (selected):

• Browne, V., Danely, J., and Rosenow, D. (2021), ‘Introduction’, in: Browne, V., Danely, J., and Rosenow, D (eds), Vulnerability and the Politics of Care: Transdisciplinary Dialogues. Proceedings of the British Academy. Oxford et.al: Oxford University Press.
• Coleman, L.M. and Rosenow, D. (2017) ‘Beyond biopolitics: Struggles over nature’, in: Prozorov, S. and Rentea, S. (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Biopolitics. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 260-278.
• Coleman, L.M. and Rosenow. D. (2017) ‘Mobilization’, in: Guillaume, X. and Bilgin, P. (eds) The Routledge Handbook of International Political Sociology. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. 

Other publications (selected):

• Rosenow, D. (2022), ‘Taking back control? Gene editing, science politics, and the legacy of our colonial past’, Renewal: A Journal of Social Democracy, 30(1), pp. 84-95. https://journals.lwbooks.co.uk/renewal/vol-30-issue-1/abstract-9535/
• Rosenow, D. (2019), ‘Rapid response: More haste, less speed – why Extinction Rebellion needs to slow down’, Discover Society, 30 April. https://archive.discoversociety.org/2019/04/30/rapid-response-more-haste-less-speed-why-extinction-rebellion-needs-to-slow-down/

Teaching

Doerthe teaches on conflict, security, racism, and postcolonial approaches at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

• 5SSW2068 Gender and War (BA War Studies and BA International Relations optional module)

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  7SSWN404 Critical Approaches to Conflict and Security (MA International Conflict Studies compulsory module)

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  7SSWN045 Race, Colonialism and Conflict (MA optional module)

 Doerthe is happy to supervise PhD students in the following subject areas:

• Settler colonialism and Indigenous politics
• Political resistance and solidarity activism
• Race and racism in International Relations
• De- and postcolonial approaches in global politics
• German colonialism and racism