Staff Profile

Role

I joined the staff in Politics at Newcastle University in 2006 as a Lecturer in International Political Economy. Until recently, I was the Director of the Postgraduate Taught Programmes in Politics and Degree Programme Director for the MA in World Politics and Popular Culture.

Qualifications

Ph.D., Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver, 1996.
M.A., Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver, 1986.
B.A. in Spanish, Colorado College.

Previous Positions

Visiting Professor (Profesor Adjunto), International Relations Institute, Pontificia Universidade do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2016-present

Assistant Professor, Political Science Department, Pennsylvania State University-Erie, 1998-2005
Visiting Professor, Political Science Department, York University (Toronto), 2002-2004
Visiting Professor, Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana, 1995-1997.

Memberships

International Studies Association
British International Studies Association

European International Studies Association

 I am also on the editorial board for the Popular Culture and World Politics book series published by Routledge.

Languages

English (first language)

Portuguese (basic)
Spanish (fluent)

Research Interests

International Political Economy, Work, and Production

Culture and aesthetics, aesthetics and politics

Other Expertise

popular culture and everyday life

politics of Brazil

Current Work

My current research involves a theoretical critique of contemporary International Political Economy. The problem I address is the tendency of the field to ignore work. But the discipline itself is structured in such a way to devalue work or to treat it as something else -- e.g., a commodity in circulation. Thus I am drawing on cultural theory, aesthetics, theories of the body, and the critique of everyday life to develop a theoretical foundation for understanding what work is, to contribute to a critique of International Political Economy. My publications have covered diverse topics from a consideration of the division of labour in cultural political economy; to punk rock as international relations; to the consequences of the critique of everyday life for international political economy; to the power relations affecting unprotected workers in international political economy; to a theory of work as articulated in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, to a critique of financialization through an aesthetic theory of work. The theoretical influences I draw most heavily on are Henri Lefebvre, Raymond Williams, Jeffrey Harrod, David Levine, Walter Benjamin, and Antonio Gramsci; but I am also very interested in the aesthetic and political theory of Jacques Ranciere and the debates about politics and democracy between Ranciere, Zizek, and Laclau.

Future Research

Future research will continue to focus on work, poverty, and culture in the global political economy. I am currently completing two studies on precarity and politics, one focusing on the poltics of precarious workers in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, and the other on the portrayal of precarious workers in three films, and a study on the body in international political economy based on an aesthetic theory of work.

Postgraduate Supervision

I welcome inquiries regarding PhD supervision in the fields of work or industrial relations in the International Political Economy; Cultural Political Economy; Popular Culture and World Politics; or in related fields. 

 Supervisions:

Chen-Wei Wang, From developmentalism to neoliberalism? Taiwan's Economic Transition (co-supervisor with Professor Barry Gills, completed 2011).
Mark Edward, The Presence and Construction of the Caribbean in Electronic Representations (co-supervisor with Dr Simon Philpott, completed 2011)

Can Cinar, The Exercise of Political Authority by the Credit Ratings Agencies: Standard and Poors (co-supervised with Kyle Grayson, MPhil in 2013).

Gerard Thomas, Classes and Markets: Equality during Financial Turmoil (co-supervised with Professor Tony Zito)

Paul McFadden, Work, Power, and the Contemporary Politics of Alienation: The Commodification of Aesthetic, Affect, Emotion, and Immateriality (co-supervised with Kyle Grayson)

Maria Bakola, Crises, Collective Action, and the Political Subject: 21st Century Political Economy and the Formation of Political Subjectivity (co-supervised with Nick Morgan)

Emily Merson (York University, Toronto, Canada), Embodying Ongoing Histories: Self-Determination and Visual Art in World Politics (co-supervised with Anna Agathangelou and David Mutimer of York University)

Postgraduate Teaching

POL8005 Theories and Theorists of International Political Economy
POL8048 World Politics and Popular Culture
POL3054 Urban International Relations

• Tedesco D, Davies M. Cities as Aesthetic Subjects. Globalizations 2022, Epub ahead of print.
• Davies Matt. Music, time, and international political economy: making coevalness. Review of International Political Economy 2022, epub ahead of print.
• Davies M. Teaching urban spaces and world politics: Perdido Street Station and pedagogies of production. Art and the Public Sphere 2021, 10(2), 211-224.
• Davies M. Urban Sites of the Everyday and the International: The Other City and the Aesthetic Subject. In: Rai SM; Ghulovic M; Jestrovic S; Saward M, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Politics and Performance. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020, pp.728.
• Davies M, Chisholm A. Neoliberalism, Violence, and the Body: Dollhouse and the Critique of the Neoliberal Subject. International Political Sociology 2018, 12(3), 274-290.
• Davies M. Everyday Life as Critique: Revisiting the Everyday in IPE with Henri Lefebvre and Postcolonialism. International Political Sociology 2016, 10(1), 22-38.
• Davies M. Production in Everyday Life: Poetics and Prosaics. In: Pijl, K van der, ed. Handbook of the International Political Economy of Production. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2015, pp.409-425.
• Davies M, Franklin MI. What Does (the study of) International Politics Sound Like?. In: Caso, F.; Hamilton, C, ed. Popular Culture and World Politics: Theories, Methods, Pedagogies. Bristol: e-International Relations, 2015, pp.120-147.
• Davies M. "Human Security, Culture, and Globalization: Transculturality, Creative Practice, or Oeuvre?”. In: Pasha, M.K, ed. Globalization, Difference, and Human Security. Routledge, 2014.
• Ryner M, Davies M. Working Classes and Transnational Change. In: Cafruny, A., Schwarz, H.M, ed. Exploring the Global Financial Crisis. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2013, pp.179-193.
• Davies M, Philpott S. Militarization and Popular Culture. In: Gouliamos, K. and Kassimeris, C, ed. The Marketing of War in the Age of Neo-Militarism. Abingdon: Routledge, 2012, pp.42-59.
• Davies M. The Aesthetics of the Financial Crisis: Work, Culture and Politics. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 2012, 37(4), 317-330.
• Davies M. "You Can't Charge Innocent People for Saving Their Lives!" Work in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. International Political Sociology 2010, 4(2), 178-195.
• Davies M. Works, Products, and the Division of Labour: Notes for a Cultural and Political Economic Critique. In: Best, J; Paterson, M, ed. Cultural Political Economy. London: Routledge, 2010, pp.48-63.
• Davies M. Book Review: Poverty, Work, and Freedeom: Political Economy and the Moral Order. Review of Radical Political Economics 2009, 41(4), 577-581.
• Grayson K, Davies M, Philpott S. Pop Goes IR? Researching the Popular Culture-World Politics Continuum. Politics 2009, 29(3), 155-163.
• Davies, M. Everyday Life in the Global Political Economy. In: de Goede, M, ed. International Political Economy and Poststructural Politics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, pp.219-237.
• Davies M, Magnus R, ed. Poverty and the Production of World Politics: Unprotected Workers in the Global Political Economy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
• Davies, M. Do It Yourself: Punk Rock and the Disalienation of International Relations. In: Franklin, MI, ed. Resounding International Relations: On Music, Culture, and Politics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, pp.113-140.
• Davies M. The Public Spheres of Unprotected Workers. Global Society 2005, 19(2), 131-154.
• Davies M, Niemann M. The Everyday Spaces of Global Politics: Work, Leisure, Family. New Political Science 2002, 24(4), 557-577.
• Davies M. International Political Economy and Mass Communication in Chile: National Intellectuals and Transnational Hegemony. London and New York: Macmillan and St Martins, 1999.