Sara is a PhD Candidate in the Department of War Studies. Her research examines the case study of British discourses in Afghanistan, analysing the tensions, successes, and challenges of projecting long-term geopolitical discourses in the Global War on Terror. Her current research is funded by a studentship from the King’s Centre for Strategic Communications where she has worked on domestic and international projects in the field of Strategic Communications, including in Ukraine and Georgia prior to the Russian invasion in 2021.

Sara has lectured on Strategic Communications in a range of geopolitical contexts on executive education courses for different government delegations. She holds a First Class and Distinction in BA English and Thai Studies from the University of Leeds, informing an interdisciplinary approach to geopolitical storytelling which includes narrative inquiry, and community-based understandings of behaviour and attitude change. In 2018, she received a research award from the University of Leeds for research on the tensions between citizenship and education in Karen hill tribe communities in the Golden Triangle. Most recently, she has been invited to serve in a senior-level committee at King’s College London as a specialist on Strategic Communications and geopolitical risk.

Research Interests

• Strategic Communications
• Strategic analysis
• Geopolitical risks

Research

British discourses in Afghanistan (a case study of Strategic Communications)

Sara's doctoral research examines the evolution and emergence of British foreign and defence policy in Afghanistan (2001-2021). Through the lens of Strategic Communications, it asks ‘if Britain's war in Afghanistan (2001 - 2021) was a failure of Strategic Communications, what was the fundamental problem that drove it to fail?’ Through elite interviews and archival data, it argues that the two key failures in Britain’s Strategic Communications in Afghanistan were western-centric assumptions in policies, which resulted in audience disconnect and departmental fragmentation, both in London and Afghanistan. It evidences this argument in five case studies of intervention: counternarcotics; economics interventions; governance reform; female education; counterinsurgency.