Staff Profile

Introduction

I am a Reader in Political Geography. My research is situated in military geographies and geopolitics. Specifically, I am interested in vertical and aerial geopolitics; analysing the role of aviation and aircraft in the projection of power across space. This interest has both historical and contemporary foci and includes work on the aerial geopolitics of the inter-war Pacific, the use of military air power to enforce international boundaries, the performativity of UK military airspaces, and the embodied geopolitics of drone warfare.

Qualifications

PhD Human Geography, University of Hull

MA International Relations, Keele University

BA (Hons) Geography, University of Liverpool

Roles and Responsibilities

Director of Postgraduate Research for the School of GPS (2021-24)

PGR Director for Geography (2020-22)

ESRC NINE DTP Human Geography pathway lead (2020-22)

Degree Programme Director for Geography (L701, F800, FH82) (2015-19)

ESRC NINE DTP Conflict, Security and Justice pathway lead (2016-19)

ESRC Peer Review College member (2010-)

Northumbrian Universities Military Education Committee member (2008-2018)

Professional Recognition

Fellow of Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers

Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (Advance HE)

Previous Positions

2014-2020 - Senior Lecturer in Political Geography, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University

2011-2014 Lecturer in Human Geography, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University

2008-11: ESRC Research Fellow, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University

2007-8: Lecturer in Human Geography, University of Liverpool

2005-7: Post-Doctoral Research Associate, International Boundaries Research Unit, Geography Department, Durham University

Research Interests

My research seeks to consider ideas of geopolitics and specifically the relationships between aerial technologies and power projection, with an empirical focus on military geography, especially relating to military air power. My work in these areas seeks to understand how aircraft can be and are used to project state power, and also how that can be challenged and disrupted. Empirically, my work ranges from the use of aviation to project US power across the interwar Pacific, through the performance of UK military airspace, to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) and the relationships between bodies and technologies in the projection of military power by aircraft.

I also have a research interest in the transferable skills agenda within UK Higher Education. This encompasses pedagogic work to help develop opportunities for students to develop skills during their degree programme, but also focuses on how students might be enabled to develop other skills and knowledges at university, and the legacy of these in graduate life. This overlaps with my military geography interests in research on the University Armed Service Units.

Research Roles

Military, War and Security (faculty-level) Research Group - Convenor (2012-15)

Power, Space, Politics research cluster - Convenor (2012-15)

Postgraduate Supervision

I welcome PhD enquiries from students interested in undertaking research on topics related to aerial geographies, geopolitics, and military geographies.

Current PhD supervisions

2023-: Chloe Barker - Investigating the operational geographies of deterrence: a creative methods analysis (NUAcT funded)

2019-: Karen Passmore - Military Pilots, identity and flying drones (part-time self-funded)

Completed PhD supervisions

2019-24: Tom Shrimplin - Everyday geopolitics of online video gaming (ESRC DTP)

2018-22: Paul Barber - Cadet forces and the skills agenda (ESRC DTP)

2012-22: Panayiotis Hadjipavlis - Analysing the geopolitics of Cypriot airspace (part-time self-funded) 

2015-19: Hannah Lyons - Young people, religion and popular geopolitics (ESRC DTC)

2013-17: Matthew Scott - Technogeopolitics and transcontinental railways (ESRC DTC)

2011-15: Daniel Bos - Popular geopolitics of military video games (ESRC DTC)

2008-12: Matthew Rech - Critical geopolitics of RAF recruitment (ESRC) 

Research Funding

2022-23: University Education Development fund (£2350) Transferable skills development for PGRs 

2018-19: GPS Research Fund (£980) Interwar air defence of the UK (scoping study)

2013-14: Leverhulme Artist-in-Residence award (c.£15,000) Visualising Military Airspaces (PI; artist Dr Matthew Flintham)

2013-2014: Catherine Cookson Foundation (£700) Historical geographies of military aviation in the north-east (scoping study)

2012-15: ESRC Research Grant (c.£270,000) 'The value of University Armed Service Units' (PI; Co-I Prof Rachel Woodward; Co-I & SRA Dr Neil Jenkings) ES/J023868/1

2011-12: Newcastle University Teaching and Learning Committee Innovation Fund (c. £3000) 'Learning from Research Practice: developing a web-based video resource that will provide Geography dissertation students with examples of how Geography staff and postgrads do their research' (with Simon Tate)

2009-2010: HaSS Faculty Research Fund (£3650) 'The graduate skills agenda and the university armed services experience'

2008-2011: ESRC Research Fellowship (c. £350,000 including PhD studentship)'The Geographies of Military Airspaces' - RES-063-27-0154

2001-2005: ESRC Open Competition PhD funding (c. £40,000)'Aviation Technogeopolitics and the Territorialisation of the Pacific as US Space, 1918-1941'- R42200134521

In 2024-25 I will be contributing to the following modules:

GEO1026 Becoming a Geographer

GEO2140 Research Design and Planning for Human Geographers (Module Leader)

GEO3099 Dissertation

GEO3102 Geopolitics

• Articles

  • Williams AJ. 'Good contact in spite of static': advocating a radio geopolitics assemblage approach through analysing the Lindberghs' 1931 North Pacific flight. Geopolitics 2025, epub ahead of print.
  • Woodward R, Jenkings KN, Williams A. Militarisation, universities and the university armed service units. Political Geography 2017, 60, 203-212.
  • Williams AJ. Aircraft carriers and the capacity to mobilise US power across the Pacific, 1919–1929. Journal of Historical Geography 2017, 58, 71-81.
  • Woodward R, Jenkings KN, Williams AJ. The UK armed forces and the value of the university armed service units. RUSI Journal 2016, 161(1), 32-39.
  • Rech MF, Bos D, Jenkings KN, Williams A, Woodward R. Geography, military geography and critical military studies. Critical Military Studies 2015, 1(1), 47-60.
  • Williams AJ. Disrupting air power: performativity and the unsettling of geopolitical frames through artworks. Political Geography 2014, 42, 12-22.
  • Williams AJ. Re-Orientating Vertical Geopolitics. Geopolitics 2013, 18(1), 225-246.
  • Williams AJ, Jeffrey A, McConnell F, Megoran N, Askins K, Gill N, Nash C, Pande R. Interventions in teaching political geography: reflections on practice. Political Geography 2013, 34, 24-34.
  • Pugh J, Gabay C, Williams AJ. Beyond the securitisation of development: The limits of intervention, developmentisation of security and repositioning of purpose in the UK Coalition Government’s policy agenda. Geoforum 2013, 44, 193-201.
  • Williams AJ. Reconceptualising spaces of the air: performing the multiple spatialities of UK military airspaces. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 2011, 36(2), 253-267.
  • Ward K, Anderson B, Coward M, Sheller M, Williams AJ, Cresswell T, Adey P. Reading Peter Adey's Aerial Life. Political Geography 2011, 30(8), 461-469.
  • Jenkings KN, Woodward R, Williams AJ, Rech M, Murphy A, Bos D. Military Occupations: Methodological approaches and the Military-Academy research nexus. Sociology Compass 2011, 5(1), 37-51.
  • Williams AJ. Enabling persistent presence? Performing the embodied geopolitics of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle assemblage. Political Geography 2011, 30(7), 381-390.
  • Adey P, Whitehead M, Williams AJ. Air-Target: distance, reach and the politics of verticality. Theory, Culture and Society 2011, 28(7-8), 173-187.
  • Williams AJ. A crisis in aerial sovereignty? Considering the implications of recent military violations of national airspace. Area 2010, 42(1), 51-59.
  • 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.
  • Bialasiewicz L, Campbell D, Elden S, Graham S, Jeffrey AS, Williams AJ. Performing security: the imaginative geographies of current US strategy. Political Geography 2007, 26(4), 405-422.
  • 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.

• Authored Book

  • Woodward R, Jenkings KN, Williams AJ. The Value of the University Armed Service Units. London, UK: Ubiquity Press, 2015.

• Book Chapters

  • Williams AJ. More blue, less green: considering what an aerial perspective can bring to military geography research. In: Woodward, R, ed. A Research Agenda for Military Geographies. London: Edward Elgar, 2019, pp.57-69.
  • Rech MF, Williams AJ. Researching at military airshows: a dialogue about ethnography and autoethnography. In: Williams,AJ;Jenkings,KN;Rech,MF;Woodward,R, ed. The Routledge Companion to Military Research Methods. London, UK: Routledge, 2016, pp.268-284.
  • Rech MF, Jenkings KN, Williams AJ, Woodward R. An Introduction to Military Research Methods. In: Williams, AJ; Jenkings, KN; Woodward, R; Rech, MF, ed. The Routledge Companion to Military Research Methods. London: Routledge, 2016, pp.1-17.
  • Williams AJ. Blurring Boundaries/Sharpening Borders: Analysing the US’s Use of Military Aviation Technologies to Secure International Borders, 2001-2008. In: Wastl-Walter, D, ed. The Ashgate Research Companion to Border Studies. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011, pp.283-300.
  • 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, pp.81-99.

• Edited Books

  • Williams AJ, Jenkings KN, Woodward R, Rech MF, ed. The Routledge Companion to Military Research Methods. London: Routledge, 2016.
  • Adey P, Whitehead M, Williams AJ, ed. From Above: war, violence and verticality. London: Hurst, 2013.

• Reviews

  • Williams A. Book Review Symposium – Katherine Chandler’s “Unmanning: How Humans, Machines and Media Perform Drone Warfare”. Antipode 2022.
  • Williams AJ. Geopolitics and the event: rethinking Britain’s Iraq war through art (book review). Space and Polity 2021, 25(1), 153-156.
  • Williams AJ. The Empire's Edge: Militarization, Resistance, and Transcending Hegemony in the Pacific (Book Review). Geographical Review 2017, 107(2), e19-e23.
  • Williams AJ. Beyond the Sovereign Realm: the geopolitics and power relations in and of outer space. Geopolitics 2010, 15(4), 785-793.