Jill Steans research interests fall in the areas of gender in International Relations Theory and International Political Economy. She is currently working on a monograph provisionally entitled War Stories: Gender and Narrative. A third edition of her book Gender and International Relations (Polity Press) is currently in preparation and she is also co-authoring a major new teaching text on IR Theory with Daniela Tepe (Kings College London) and Thomas Diez (Tubingen University). Jill is involved in a number of national and international research networks, including: the British International Studies Associations Working Group on Gendering International Relations and the British International Studies Association research network on Critical International Political Economy. She has engaged in public consultancy exercises (including the British FCO, UNA-UK- INSTRAW) and has refereed for national and international research funding bodies including the ESRC, the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Canadian Research Council. She has also served on a number of Editorial Boards and Committees including: the Review of International Studies; the British Journal of Politics and International Relations; and the International Feminist Journal of Politics. Jill welcomes applications from PhD students in International Political Economy, particularly governance and social reproduction and International Relations Theory, particularly projects that focus on gender and narrative.

Emma Foster is an IR theorist. Her research interests include gender and sexuality, international and sustainable development and the work of Michel Foucault. Emma, therefore, is currently researching issues of Gender and Sexuality broadly in relation to (Queering) International Development and Sustainable Development. She is currently working on a number of projects; namely, the construction of 'developed' and 'developing' states through gender(ed) practices at the intersection of the body and the relationship between gender and corruption in Nigeria and India (with Dr Heather Marquette, International Development Department, University of Birmingham). With regard to the former Emma has recently published in this field. She is further engaged in a number of projects which look at the teaching of gender and sexuality in the disciplines of political science and international relations. Emma has published articles in British Politics (2008), Globalizations (2011), Political Studies Review (2011) the BJPIR (forthcoming) and Gender, Place and Culture (forthcoming). Moreover, she has reviewed articles for Third World Quarterly and the European Journal of Political Research. She is a member of the Environmental Politics Research Group, the Global Studies Association and has served on the steering group related to the teaching of gender and sexuality in the social sciences for C-SAP (the Centre for Sociology, Anthropology and Politics).

Laura Jenkins is a political sociologist whose research explores strategies of politicisation and has, thus far, focused on the gendered body and its regulation, specifically in respect to assisted reproductive technologies, self-starvation and self-harm. She became a member of staff in POLSIS in 2009 after the completion of her PhD on ‘A Genealogical Politicisation of the Body’. Her research is grounded within critical political theory, utilising work from feminist, post-structural, radical democratic theory and Critical Theory. She has a particular interest in the work of Michel Foucault, having published work on the politicising potential of the critical method of genealogy and is currently preparing work on Foucault’s writings on the body. Laura’s other current research interests concern British politics and gender, and the politics of presence within the Academy. She is currently working (with Stephen Bates and Fran Amery) on an examination of the (de)politicising effects of the removal of the ‘Father’s Clause’ in the amended Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. In 2005 Laura won the PSA Prize for the best paper in the journal Politics for her first publication “Corporeal Ontology: Beyond Mind-Body Dualism?”  Laura is also a member of the, British Politics Research Group, the Social and Political Theory Research Cluster and the Political Studies Association. She has acted as a reviewer for New Political Economy and British Politics Journals. She has also co-written an article on pedagogy and is keen to continue to combine her teaching and research interests.

Shelley Budgeon is a sociologist who specialises in the study of gender and feminist theory with a particular emphasis placed upon how the constitution of gender relations and processes of gender identification are being effected by socio-political change. Her work analyses the formation of contemporary femininity and gendered subjectivities; the constitutive relations between different femininities and feminisms in late modernity; and the dynamics of postfeminist neoliberalism. Shelley has researched the lived experiences of young women as they negotiate feminine identity within the context of individualisation and has engaged in debates regarding the impact of post-feminism both as a recuperative discourse and as a way to rethink feminist projects. She has also researched the practices, values and significance associated with the provision of care in non-familial settings in a project designed to uncover diversity across non-normative intimacies and personal relations. In her most recent research project she has addressed how transformations to gender relations have resulted in the reconstruction of idealized femininity through the ideals of autonomy, individuality and self-management and argues that many of the strategies promoted by third wave feminism require reconsideration and revision. Her next project will examine contemporary gender equality discourses and their specific manifestation in policies. Analysis of the meanings formally associated with the institutionalization of equality and those which emerge through the everyday practices and processes which constitute gendered interactions within organizations will form the basis for understanding how equality is ‘done’ by social actors in everyday life. 
Shelley welcomes applications from prospective PhD students in the above areas.

Nicola Smith is a political economist whose work is broadly concerned with debates about globalisation and social justice, particularly with respect to the discursive reproduction of uneven power relations.  Nicola is currently working on a Leverhulme Trust-funded project with Katy Pilcher on ‘Male and transgender sex work in the UK and the Netherlands’, which will last from 1 October 2011 to 31 July 2012.  The key aims of the research are: to speak directly to people working in and around the sex industry, and particularly male and transgender escorts, whose voices are rarely heard in debates about commercial sex; to interrogate the political, economic and cultural context of male and transgender sex work in the UK and the Netherlands; and to consider how academic and policy debates might be reframed to take more account of male and transgender sex work, not least with respect to the appropriateness of current policies and services to the needs of sex workers themselves.  Nicola welcomes applications from potential PhD students in the above areas.

Katy Pilcher is currently working with Nicola Smith on a Leverhulme-funded research project on the political economy of male and transgender sex work in the UK and the Netherlands. Katy is also in the final stages of her ESRC-funded PhD in Sociology at the University of Warwick, which focuses on erotic labour and women as consumers of sexualised entertainment.

Stephen Bates is a political scientist whose research interests are in the areas of power, political change and issues of representation and accountability. These concerns are linked by a desire to understand, explain and extend political agency in terms of the range of choices, strategies and futures open to individuals and groups within society. Stephen’s current research is on an examination of the (de)politicising effects of the removal of the ‘Father’s Clause’ in the amended Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act (with Laura Jenkins and Fran Amery), the status of women within Political Science (with Laura Jenkins, Zoe Pflaeger and Kelly Rogers), the power of the Left (with David Bailey), and Prime Minister’s Questions (with Peter Kerr). He has published in journals such as Sociology, Polity, Parliamentary Affairs, Political Studies Review, the Journal of Political Power, and Politics. He was an invited participant on the APSA Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession’s Roundtable on the Comparative Status of Women in Political Science at the 2012 APSA Annual Meeting and is a founding member of the International Network on the Status of Women in Political Science.

• Jill Steans

(with Dani Tepe) Interrogating the Global/Local Nexus: A Feminist IPE Approach to the ‘Problem’ of Social Cohesion and Community Cohesion, International Politics, 49, 1, 2012.

(With Daniela Tepe) ‘Introduction: Social Reproduction in International Political Economy: Theoretical Insights and International, Transnational and Local Sitings’ Review of International Political Economy,17, 5, 2010: 807-815.

‘Telling Stories about Women and Gender in the ‘War on Terror.’ Global Society, 21, 1, January 2008:. ISSN: 1360-0826.

‘Revisionist Heroes and Dissident Heroines: Gender, Nation and War in Soviet Films of “the Thaw”’, Global Society, 24, 3, 2010: 401-419.

• Emma Foster

‘Problematising the Centrality of Gender in Environmental Governmentality’ in Globalizations, (2011)

‘Gender and International Relations’ for J. Haynes and L. Pettiford World Politics (2011, Pearson)

'Female Circumcision vs. Designer Vaginas: Surgical Genital Practices and the Discursive Reproduction of State Boundaries' for A. Cameron, J. Dickinson and N. Smith (eds.) Body/State (forthcoming 2012, Ashgate)

The (Re)production of Sexual Norms through Environmental Discourses’ in Gender, Place and Culture (forthcoming)

• Laura Jenkins

(2011) “The Difference Genealogy Makes: Strategies for Politicisation or How to Extend Capacities for Autonomy”, Political Studies, 59 (1), pp. 156-174.

(with Bates, S R.) (2007) “In Defence of Pluralism in the Teaching of Ontology and Epistemology: A Reply to Hay, Marsh and Furlong”, Politics, 27(3), pp.208-211 (Most Read Article in the Journal Politics in 2007/2008)

(with Bates, S. R.) (2007) “Teaching and Learning Ontology and Epistemology in Political Science”, Politics, 27(1), pp.55-63

• Shelley Budgeon

Third Wave Feminism and the Politics of Gender in Late Modernity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).

"The Contradictions of Successful Femininity:  Third Wave Feminism, Postfeminism and 'New' Femininities", in Gill, Rosalind and Scharff, Christina (eds.), New Femininities: Postfeminism, Neoliberalism and Subjectivity.  (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).

Global Social Justice (Routledge, 2011, co-edited with Heather Widdows)

Body and State (Ashgate, forthcoming 2012, co-edited with Angus Cameron and Jen Dickinson)

Articles in Review of International Political Economy, Sexualities, Public Administration and Third World Quarterly.

• Katy Pilcher

Pieces in Sexualities, Leisure Studies, Sociological Research Online, Journal of International Women's Studies, and Reinvention, and she is an executive committee member of the Feminist and Women's Studies Association UK and Ireland (FWSA).

• Stephen Bates

"Questions to the Prime Minister: A Comparative Study of PMQs from Thatcher to Cameron", (with Peter Kerr, Christopher Byrne and Liam Stanley), Parliamentary Affairs, advance access, (2012), pp.1-28 

"Women in the Profession: The Composition of UK Political Science Departments by Sex", (with Laura Jenkins and Zoe Pflaeger), Politics, 32/3, (2012), pp.139-152. 

"Struggle (or its absence) during the crisis: what power is left?", (with David Bailey), Journal of Political Power, 5/2, (2012), pp.195-216. 

"Re-Structuring Power", Polity, 42/3, (2010), pp.352-376. 

The group meets regularly during the academic year. One Symposium and one Conference are planned this year

All in this together? Interrogating U.K. 'austerity' through gender lenses
In April, 2012, the Gender and Feminist Theory Group hosted a Symposium on the financial crisis and the UK Coalition Government responses. This provided a space for participants- academics, policymakers, third sector organizations and advocates- to interrogate the crisis and responses through gender lenses.

Feminist community development – time for a renaissance?
(Organised by Emma Foster and Shelley Budgeon)

This conference aims to examine of the significance of ‘feminism’ in community development theory and practice in relation to the prevailing social, economic and political context and to bring about new critical and practical challenges. A second aim is to open up spaces for critical dialogue amongst practitioners, academics and policy makers about some of the key questions and issues associated with neo-liberal challenges in relation to women’s spaces, feminism and community development theory and practice. A third aim is to provide opportunities for networking across the boundaries of theory, practice and policy and challenge the structures and hierarchies between these domains. The conference is timely since there is a need to increase the visibility and legitimacy of feminist community development as an approach. Key questions include: What do we mean by feminist community development and why do it? Where have we been? And where are we now? Is there still a role for women organising together as women? How can we move forward with a feminist agenda in Community Development? What are the threats and opportunities? The conference will lead to a number of outputs, including: a set of informal, free and accessible papers will be produced from the event in a similar in style to that of The Edinburgh Papers; Reclaiming Social Purpose in Community Education, Reclaiming Social Purpose Group, published January 2008.