Dr Alison Williams
ESRC Academic Research Fellow
- Email: alison.williams1@ncl.ac.uk
- Telephone: +44 (0)191 222 8489
Alison Williams is an ESRC Research Fellow working on a three-year programme of research entitled 'The Geographies of Military Airspaces'. Alison's main interests are in the areas of political geography and geopolitics. Specifically, she is interested in what might be called 'vertical geopolitics'; analysing the role of aviation and aircraft in the projection of power across space. This interest has both historical and contemporary foci and, to date, includes work on the popular geopolitics of Pan American Airways' trans-Pacific air route, the enforcement of Iraq's international boundaries, and the use of UAV's to secure the US-Mexico border.
Research Interests
Critical geopolitics
Military geographies
Geographies of aviation and airspace
US aviation in the interwar Pacific
Current Work
From July 2008 to June 2011 I am working on a programme of research under the heading of the 'Geographies of Military Airspaces'. Within this ESRC-funded Fellowship I will be theorising airspace; investigating how airspace is constructed through a variety of legal regimes; discovering how military flight crews are taught to 'see' and understand airspace; considering popular geopolitical representations of military airspace in video gaming; and analysing the significance of unmanned aerial vehicles technologies within the military sphere.
I am also interested in the issue of trasnferable skills and the graduate skills agenda. To this end, I have recently developed a website for Newcastle Geography students to help them identify the transferables skills that completion of the various modes of assessment can enable them to advance (makinggeographywork.ncl.ac.uk).
I am also working on a project that brings my interests in the military and the graduate skills agenda together. I recently received a Faculty Research Fund Award to enable an RA to conduct a pilot study into the relationship between membership of the university's armed service units and the development of transferable skills.
Selected Publications
- Williams AJ. Flying the flag: Pan American Airways and the projection of US power across the interwar Pacific. In: MacDonald, F.; Hughes, R.; Dodds, K, ed. Observant states: geopolitics and visual culture. London: I B Tauris, 2010.
- Williams AJ. A crisis in aerial sovereignty? Considering the implications of recent military incursions of national airspace. Area 2009.
- Elden S; Williams AJ. The territorial integrity of Iraq, 2003-2007: invocation, violation, viability. Geoforum 2009, 40(3), 407-417.
- Donaldson JW; Williams AJ. Delimitation and demarcation: analysing the legacy of Stephen B. Jones’s Boundary-Making. Geopolitics 2008, 13(4), 676-700.
- Williams AJ. Hakumat al Tayarrat: the role of air power in the enforcement of Iraq's borders. Geopolitics 2007, 12(3), 505-528.
- Donaldson JW; Williams AJ. Understanding maritime jurisdictional disputes: the East China Sea and beyond. Journal of International Affairs 2005, 59(1), 135-156.
Projects
- The Geographies of Military Airspace
Project Leaders: Dr Alison Williams
Future Research
My future research will continue to centre upon geographies of aviation and airspace in both historical and contemporary periods. I also plan to continue my work on the graduate skills agenda and its relationship to membership of the armed service units.
Postgraduate Supervision
2008-2011: Matthew Rech - Geographies of RAF recruitment (ESRC)
Funding
2009-2010: Faculty Research Fund (£3650) 'The graduate skills agenda and the university armed services experience'
2008-2011: ESRC Research Fellowship (c. £300,000)'The Geographies of Military Airspaces'
2001-2005: ESRC Open Competition PhD funding (c. £40,000)'Aviation Technogeopolitics and the Territorialisation of the Pacific as US Space, 1918-1941'
Qualifications
2001-5: PhD Human Geography, University of Hull
1998-9: MA International Relations, Keele University
1995-8: BA (Hons) Geography, University of Liverpool
Previous Positions
2007-8: Lecturer in Human Geography, University of Liverpool
2005-7: Post-Doctoral Research Associate, International Boundaries Research Unit, Geography Department, Durham University
Memberships
Fellow of RGS-IBG
Treasurer of the RGS-IBG Political Geography Research Group - polgrg.wordpress.com/
Undergraduate Teaching
GEO2044 Advanced Study Skills (Tutor)
GEO3102 Geopolitical Thought and Practice