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). I study how security, identity, legitimacy and political order are produced, negotiated and sustained in practice. My work on Taiwan and Global China draws on multilingual fieldwork in East Asia and Africa, while engaging wider questions of political order across the Indo-Pacific and 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, focusing on how memory, political community and legitimacy are shaped through state-led efforts to reckon with the past.
Research
My research asks how political order becomes secure, legitimate and meaningful. I examine 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 centred on Chinese communities, tracing how individuals, firms, diplomats and other actors perceive risk, negotiate protection and sustain security in practice.
Building on this empirical work, I am developing a broader research agenda on relational security and microgeopolitics, including questions of development, peace and Chinese approaches to political order across Africa, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific.
Relational Security
Global China
Africa
Indo-Pacific
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 looks beyond Taiwan’s domestic politics to ask how political identity and community are performed and negotiated internationally through diplomacy, recognition and external relationships. My emerging work on Taiwan–Somaliland relations and Taiwan’s engagement in Africa connects questions of identity and legitimacy to contested statehood, international recognition and political order. Earlier anthropological research on migration and diaspora also informs my interest in belonging and the boundaries of political membership.
Taiwan
Transitional Justice
Identity
Recognition
Diplomacy
Somaliland
Political Community
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 bound up with 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, fieldwork and professional practice span North America, Europe, Africa and East Asia. I trained in International Relations and anthropology in London, held research appointments in Paris and Pretoria, and have conducted sustained fieldwork in Juba and Taipei.
Through this work, I have developed scholarly, policy and professional relationships across these regions. These networks support comparative research, field access and collaboration across regional boundaries, and inform an approach to international politics that does not treat regions as self-contained cases.
London
Paris
Juba
Taipei
Boston
Pretoria
Teaching & Research Methods
I teach International Relations, global politics, diplomacy and international organisations at undergraduate and postgraduate level in the UK, continental Europe and China. My teaching connects theoretical debates with contemporary political problems, empirical research and policy practice.
My research uses fieldwork-intensive, practice-centred methods, 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, relationships 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 write regularly for specialist and policy audiences on China, Taiwan, security, diplomacy and Global South politics. This public-facing work brings academic research into conversation 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 other international professional settings.
This work has given me sustained first-hand experience of the institutional and linguistic practices through which international politics is conducted. It informs my research on negotiation, relationships, informal practice, political communication and the gap 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, coordination of multilingual teams, client relations and professional communication across complex institutional settings.
Practice Areas
Diplomacy · Multilateral Governance · Strategic Communication · Conference Interpreting · Cross-Cultural Communication · International Negotiation
Research
Fieldwork-driven research 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 diplomacy, conference interpreting and consulting.
