Research

My research lies at the intersection of philosophy, politics, and law. My current research explores three themes. A full list of my writing can be found here; pre-prints of my academic scholarship can be found at my SSRN page.

VICTIMS' DUTIES TO RESIST THEIR OPPRESSION

My next book explores victims' duties in the face of their oppression. In 'Epistemic Privilege and Victims’ Duties to Resist their Oppression,’ Journal of Applied Philosophy (2018), I provide an account of an other-regarding duty. I discuss this account with David Edmonds on Philosophy247 and in Women of Ideas (ed. S. Finn, Oxford University Press 2021); Eric J. Miller reviews the argument here in JOTWELL. 

I provide an overview of different arguments for victims' duties in ‘Recent Debates on Victims’ Duties to Resist their Oppression,’ Philosophy Compass (2020), and I outline the different responses to oppression that victims' duties call for in 'Victims' Reasons and Responses in the Face of Oppression' Harvard Review of Philosophy (2021).

I have given related talks at the BIAPT 2022,  the 2nd annual Max Stirner Lecture at the University of Bayreuth, APSA, MANCEPT, Princeton, Penn, and Sydney Law. 

TRANSNATIONAL LEGAL & POLITICAL THEORY

I explore the normative values revealed by, and governing, political relationships that transcend bounded communities. My first monograph, The Ethics of Exile: a political theory of diaspora (Oxford University Press, 2021) examines the rights and responsibilities exiles have in the communities they have left. Related work appears in ‘Exile Political Representation,’ Journal of Political Philosophy (2016); 'Pluralism in Political Obligation' (ed. R. Chang and A. Srinivasan, forthcoming); and 'Treason, Expatriation, and So-Called Americans: Recovering the Role of Allegiance in Citizenship,' Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy (2014).

Building on my monograph, an ongoing project, 'Transitional Justice as Transnational Justice,' explores the roles forced emigrants ought to play in transitional justice processes in their countries of origin. This project combines normative inquiry with ethnographic fieldwork among the Sri Lankan Tamil community in Toronto and is funded by a SSHRC Insight Development Grant.

LEGITIMACY AND BORDER CONTROL

In 'Privatising border control,’ Oxford Journal of Legal Studies (2018) I use intrinsic arguments against privatisation to re-assess the state's standing in border control. Absent mechanisms of inclusion available to would-be migrants, I argue that the state's legitimacy is in question and that some non-state actors can play a legitimating function. I develop this line of argument in ‘Outsourcing Border Control: Public agency and action in migration,’ Cambridge Handbook on Privatization (ed. A. Dorfman and A. Harel, 2021) and 'Legitimacy at the Border' (ed. M. Bosworth and L. Zedner, forthcoming). I argue that differentiated inclusion  can ensure that those subject to border control have access to mechanisms of voice and accountability required for border control to be legitimate.

Early research and a workshop on private actors in border control was funded by a British Academy Rising Star award in 2016.