Informed by the cultural theory of Bourdieu, Foucault and Derrida, my research draws predominantly on ethnographic research methods to examine fundamental questions of power and inequality. This has led to a critical focus on the ‘performative rituals’ of elite social groups, the maintenance and development of financial landscapes and distinct masculinist identities that sustain neoliberal ‘traits’ of competition aggression and risk seeking.

I undertook my PhD with the support of an ESRC studentship at the University of York, completing in 2015. Since, my work has been published in leading international journals, including Sociology, Cities, Sociological Review, Gender, Work & Organization and Ethnography. In 2021, my research monograph, titled Harm Production and the Moral Dislocation of Finance, was published by Emerald. Currently, I have an edited book in production (Gendering Place and Affect, Bristol University Press) and am undertaking research on erasure and incorporation of the Barangaroo financial district in Sydney.

Research Interests

• Social finance studies
• Embodiment
• Gender
• Zemiology (social harm)
• Elite deviance
• Cultural production of space
• Ethnographic research methods
• Organisational culture and practice

Research student supervision

Current PhD Students:

• Mansoor (2021-ongoing), Health Behind Bars: A sociological analysis of the health of inmates in the prisons of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan [Principal]
• Thi Tuyet Nhung Luong (2021-ongoing), The Investigation and Prosecution of Online Child Sexual Exploitation in Vietnam [Principal]
• Jade Hutchinson (2020-ongoing), Far-Right Extremism and the Online Eco-System [Associate]

Completed PhD Students:

• Vince Hurley (2015-2023), The Financialisation of Policing [Principal]
• Adam Turner (2017-2022), Addressing The Intelligence Applications of Bitcoin Payments Related to Ransomware [Principal]

Completed MRes students:

• Caitlin Rhodes (2023-2024), Complexities in Australia’s Local and Federal Efforts to Address Child Sexual Exploitation Online.
• Fiza Hussain (2023-2024), Giving Voice to the Voiceless: An analysis of Hindu women’s access to the formal justice system in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
• Jack Gray (2023-2024), The Pervasive and Damaging Guiding Principle of Shareholder Value: Insights through the Australian Banking Royal Commission.
• Ashleigh Shankar (2022-2023), The Darker Side of War: Examining the role that social abjection and stigma play in wartime rape.
• Hannah Gately (2022-2023), Russian Organised Crime and Ransomware as a Service: State cultivated cybercrime.
• Hussain Gowhor (2020-2022), The Identification of Effectiveness Criteria for Financial Intelligence Tools in Early Detection of Terrorist Financing Activities.