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.

Taipei skyline with Taipei 101, layered mountains, and green hills

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.

Portrait of Felix Brender 王哲謙

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.

Selected Academic Publications

Journal Article

Teaching Sleeping Dogs New Tricks? Transitional Justice as Identity-Building.

Open Cultural Studies, 6(1), 2022, 12–24.

Book Chapter · Forthcoming

People of and by the Sea: Materiality of the Ocean in Creating and Maintaining Taiwanese Identity through Foreign Policy.

In Sybille Reinke de Buitrago & Dana Trif (eds.), Materiality and Foreign Policy. Forthcoming.

Book Chapter · Forthcoming

From Commission to Ministries: German Encounters in Taiwan’s Transitional Justice, 2016–2024.

In Ann Heylen & Jens Damm (eds.), Taiwan as a Contact Zone. Forthcoming.

Reference Entry

Transitional Justice.

In Hsin-huang Michael Hsiao (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Taiwan Studies. Brill, 2023.

Edited Volume · Forthcoming

Taiwan Studies Reconfigured: Islands of Inquiry.

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.

Teaching

International Relations · International Security · Diplomacy · Global China · Taiwan Politics

Research Methods

Interviews · Participant Observation · Ethnographic Fieldwork · Discourse Analysis · Multilingual Research

Current Research & Pipeline

Casting the Security Net(Book Project)

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.

Taiwanese Identity & Transitional Justice(Research Programme)

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.

Selected policy and public scholarship. All listed items link to their original publication or platform.

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.

Selected Professional Roles

Consultant & Conference Interpreter — InOtherWords GmbH

2014–present

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.