Security, identity, and the making of political order
I am an International Relations scholar with a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). My research examines how security, identity, legitimacy, and political order are produced, negotiated, and sustained through political practice. My work on Taiwan and Global China draws on multilingual fieldwork across East Asia and the wider Global South.
Across two connected research programmes, I examine how communities, institutions, and political actors make claims about security, belonging, and legitimate order, and how those claims acquire force through relationships, language, memory, and everyday practice.
Hou Family Fellow in Taiwan Studies
Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University
September 2026 – September 2027
At the Fairbank Center, I am developing research on Taiwanese identity and transitional justice, with particular attention to the relationship between memory, political community, legitimacy, and state-led projects of historical reckoning.
Research
My research asks how political order is made secure, legitimate, and meaningful. I trace how security and political identity are negotiated, institutionalised, and sustained through relationships, organisational routines, public narratives, and everyday political practice.
Security, Relationality & Political Order
This research programme examines how security and political order emerge from relationships, everyday practices, and local institutions. My doctoral research in South Sudan focused on Chinese communities, tracing how individuals, firms, diplomats, and other actors perceive risk, negotiate protection, and sustain security in practice.
From this empirical foundation, I am developing a broader research agenda on relational security, micropolitics, development, peace, and Chinese approaches to political order across the Global South.
Relational Security
China
Global South
Microgeopolitics
Africa–Middle East Nexus
Identity, Justice & Political Community
This research programme examines how political communities define and contest belonging, legitimacy, and collective identity through memory, language, institutions, migration, and political narratives. Much of this work centres on Taiwan and transitional justice.
The programme also draws on earlier anthropological research on migration, diaspora, first-generation Taiwanese communities, and questions of inclusion and otherness. More broadly, it examines how boundaries of political membership are drawn and how claims to legitimate order are established and contested.
Taiwan
Transitional Justice
Memory
Identity
Belonging
Political Community
Migration
Legitimacy
Across both programmes, political order is the central analytical problem: how it is secured and sustained, how it acquires legitimacy, and how it becomes connected to identity and belonging.
Keyser-Verreault, Amélie, Josie-Marie Perkuhn & Felix Brender (eds.). Routledge. Forthcoming.
Selected academic publications. Forthcoming items will be linked when official publisher or chapter pages become available.
International & Fieldwork Profile
My academic training, research, and fieldwork span several regional and institutional settings. I trained in International Relations and anthropology in London, developed research in Paris and Pretoria, and have undertaken sustained fieldwork in Juba and Taipei.
These experiences underpin a comparative, fieldwork-driven approach to international politics that moves between regions rather than treating them as self-contained cases.
London
Paris
Juba
Taipei
Boston
Pretoria
Teaching & Research Methods
I teach International Relations, global politics, diplomacy, and international organisations across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in the UK, continental Europe, and China. My teaching connects theoretical debates with contemporary political problems, empirical research, and policy practice.
My research is fieldwork-intensive and practice-centred, combining interviews, participant observation, qualitative text and discourse analysis, and multilingual source research.
Selected Teaching
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen
International Organisation — Course Convenor & Lecturer · Undergraduate
Introduction to Diplomacy — Course Convenor & Lecturer · Undergraduate
London School of Economics and Political Science
Contemporary Issues in International Relations — Seminar Leader · BSc International Relations, LSE
Global Politics in the 21st Century — Seminar Leader · Undergraduate visiting programme, UC Davis at LSE
Theory and Practice of International Relations — Seminar Leader · Undergraduate visiting programme, Universidad Europea de Madrid at LSE
Heidelberg University
Conference Interpreting: German into English — Course Convenor & Lecturer · MA
Developing my doctoral research into a broader account of relational security, everyday practice, and Chinese approaches to political order.
Microgeopolitics(Theoretical Project)
A theoretical project examining how global political power is produced through small-scale interactions, relationality, and everyday political practices.
China & the Africa–Middle East Nexus(Emerging Project)
A comparative project examining Chinese political and security engagement across the Arab world and the wider Africa–Middle East nexus.
Research on how transitional justice, memory, and institutional narratives shape Taiwanese identity, legitimacy, and political community.
Policy & Public Scholarship
I regularly write for specialist and policy audiences on China, Taiwan, security, diplomacy, and Global South politics. My public scholarship connects academic research with contemporary international developments.
Expert commentary on Chinese development finance, USAID’s withdrawal, and Beijing’s approach to influence and development cooperation in Asia.
Diplomacy & Professional Practice
Alongside my academic work, I have more than a decade of experience as a conference interpreter and consultant in diplomatic, multilateral, policy, and international professional settings.
This work has given me sustained exposure to the institutional and linguistic practices through which international politics is conducted. It informs my research on negotiation, relationships, informal practice, political communication, and the relationship between formal policy and political action.
Strategic communication, multilingual advisory work, and conference interpreting across governmental, international-organisational, academic, and corporate settings.
Co-founder & Conference Interpreter — con:sens language professionals
2021–present
International conference delivery, multilingual team coordination, client relations, and professional communication across complex institutional environments.
Practice Areas
Diplomacy · Multilateral Governance · Strategic Communication · Conference Interpreting · Cross-Cultural Communication · International Negotiation
Research
Fieldwork-driven scholarship on security, identity, and political order.
Policy
Analysis of China, Taiwan, diplomacy, security, and Global South politics for policy and specialist audiences.
Practice
Professional experience in international diplomacy, conference interpreting, and consulting.
