About Me

NikkiI am a professor of Political Science at the University of Memphis. My specific areas of research interest are international relations and environmental politics. My on-going research explores the intersections between gender, security, and the environment.

My most recent book project, Gender and the Environment (Polity 2017), explains why gender matters for addressing environmental issues.  In it, I examine contemporary debates around population, consumption, and security to show how gender can help us to better understand environmental issues and to develop policies to tackle them effectively and justly. Our society often has different expectations of men and women, and these expectations influence the realm of environmental politics. Drawing on examples of various environmental concerns from countries around the world, Gender and the Environment makes the case that it is only by adopting a more inclusive focus that embraces the complex ways men and women interact with ecosystems that we can move towards enhanced sustainability and greater environmental justice on a global scale.

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Another recent book project, Environmental Security and Gender (Routledge 2014), examines the role of gender in discourses that combine security and the environment both in theory, through a review of scholarly literature, and in practice, through three case studies. The project employs a variety of qualitative research methods, including discourse analysis, gender analysis, and case studies to examine the role of gender in recent debates about the connections between security and the environment.

I have also conducted research on climate change as a security issue, exploring the implications of linking a wide-ranging environmental issue to security debates. My work has recently appeared in Security Studies, International Studies Perspectives, Global Environmental Politics, International Feminist Journal of Politics, and multiple edited volumes. My book, International Security and Gender, (Polity Press) was named to Choice’s 2014 list of Outstanding Academic Titles.

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