Duriesmith, David, Dr

Dr David Duriesmith

Department of Politics and International Relations

Senior Lecturer in Gender and Politics

d.duriesmith@sheffield.ac.uk

Elmfield Building

Full contact details

Dr David Duriesmith
Department of Politics and International Relations
Elmfield Building
Northumberland Road
Sheffield
S10 2TU

Profile: David holds a BA (2009) and PhD (2014) in international Studies from the Сŷ��Ƶ of Melbourne. After completing his studies, he held postdoctoral posts at the Сŷ��Ƶ of Melbourne (2015-2017) and the Сŷ��Ƶ of Queensland (2017-2020). In 2020 he joined the department as Lecturer in Gender and Politics.

David’s research explores the relationship between patriarchy, masculinities and violence from a pro-feminist perspective. He has published on preventing violence after war, men’s support for gender equality, foreign fighter networks, the transformation of war and feminist international relations theory.

Research interests: My research draws on feminist international relations theory and interdisciplinary critical studies on men and masculinities. There have been three main strains so far:

Masculinities and peacebuilding
My current research focuses on the politics of masculinity in sites of peacebuilding. This project looks at the ways in which masculinities shape gender-insensitive peacebuilding efforts and on the recent growth of targeted masculinities programming during peacebuilding. For this project I have conducted fieldwork in Fiji in 2018 and Aceh (Indonesia) in 2019. This research comes out of my earlier involvement with the United Nations joint programme Partners for Prevention. Early aspects of this work have been published in Peacebuilding and the LSE WPS Centre’s working paper series.

Gender in foreign fighter networks
Since 2016 I have been working with Noor Huda Ismail from the Rajaratnam School of International Studies Singapore on the role of gender in foreign fighter networks. For this research we have conducted life history interviews with Indonesian foreign fighters about their experiences of recruitment, training and disengagement. In 2019 I continued this work with the support of UN Women and UNDP to produce a report on the links between violent extremist masculinities and militarised masculinities in the Philippines. Aspects of this project have been published in International Theory, Stability, and Critical Military Studies.

The transformation of war
I completed my PhD in 2014 which examined the role of masculinity in constructing new wars. My research explores large scale conceptual problems within security with a particular emphasis on the social and structural role of gender. By examining the breakdown of relationships between groups of men in Sierra Leone and South Sudan my work found that the emergence of virulent conflict during the 1990s could be conceptualized as a form of aggressive gender politics challenging the prevailing gender order. Aspects of this work have been published in The International Feminist Journal of Politics and in my 2017 book Masculinity and New War: the gendered structure of contemporary armed conflict.

In addition to these main projects I have published on feminist international relations theory (in IFJP and Revisiting Gendered States), with Georgina Holmes from Reading Сŷ��Ƶ on disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration/security sector reform programmes in Security Dialogue and on anti-feminist violent extremism with Shannon Zimmerman and Luisa Ryan. I have written blogposts and opinion pieces for the International Committee of the Red Cross, The Social Change Lab, Australian Outlook, Broad Agenda The Disorder of Things, and Voice Male Magazine.

Publications

Books

Duriesmith D (2018) . Oxford Сŷ��Ƶ Press.
Duriesmith DJ (2013) New War, Masculinity and Patriarchy The Social Construction of Contemporary Armed Conflict.
Duriesmith D () . London: Routledge.

Journal articles

Duriesmith D (2023) . Australian Journal of Political Science, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), 1-15.
Gelber K, Brennan K, Duriesmith D & Fenton E (2022) . Australian Journal of Political Science.
Duriesmith D & Ismail NH (2022) . Studies in Conflict & Terrorism.
Duriesmith D & Ismail NH (2022) . Critical Military Studies, 8(1), 22-38.
Duriesmith D (2020) . Peacebuilding, 8(4), 418-431.
Touquet H, Chynoweth S, Martin S, Reis C, Myrttinen H, Schulz P, Turner L & Duriesmith D (2020) . Journal of Humanitarian Affairs, 2(3), 25-34.
Duriesmith D & Meger S (2020) . Review of International Studies, 46(3), 357-375.
Duriesmith D (2020) . International Feminist Journal of Politics, 22(1), 26-32.
Duriesmith D & Holmes G (2019) . Security Dialogue, 50(4), 361-379.
Duriesmith D & Ismail NH (2019) . International Theory, 11(2), 139-159.
Duriesmith D (2018) . Stability: International Journal of Security and Development, 7(1).
Duriesmith D (2014) . International Feminist Journal of Politics, 16(2), 236-254.
Duriesmith D, Asmawati A, Ismail NH & Syah SF () . Peacebuilding.
Duriesmith D, Maximilian K, McMullin JR, Messerschmidt M & Quest H () . Peacebuilding.
Duriesmith D, Frounfelker RL, Johnson-Lafleur J, Grenier CM & Rousseau C () . Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression.

Chapters

Duriesmith D (2019) , Rethinking Silence, Voice and Agency in Contested Gendered Terrains (pp. 66-77). Routledge
Duriesmith D (2019) , Handbook on Gender and Violence (pp. 77-88). Edward Elgar Publishing
Duriesmith D (2019) Negative space and the feminist act of citation: Strategic silence and the limits of gendering an unloving discipline, Rethinking Silence, Voice and Agency in Contested Gendered Terrains: Beyond the Binary (pp. 66-77).
Duriesmith D (2018) , The Routledge Handbook of Gender and Security (pp. 262-272). Routledge
Duriesmith D (2018) Manly states and feminist foreign policy: Revisiting the liberal state as an agent of change, Revisiting Gendered States: Feminist Imaginings of the State in International Relations (pp. 51-68).
Duriesmith DJ (2016) Building Peace with Warlords in South Sudan: A Gendered Structure, African Frontiers: Insurgency, Governance and Peacebuilding in Postcolonial States (pp. 157-166).
Duriesmith DJ (2015) Building peace with warlords in South Sudan: A gendered structure, African Frontiers: Insurgency, Governance and Peacebuilding in Postcolonial States (pp. 157-166).
() Routledge

Reports

Duriesmith D (2020) Adaptation of Militarized Masculinity and Violent Extremism in the Southern Philippines
Duriesmith D, Zimmerman S & Ryan L (2018) Recognizing the violent extremist ideology of 'Incels'

Teaching activities

At the Сŷ��Ƶ of Sheffield I teach courses related to gender and feminist perspectives on politics. Before joining the department I taught courses on security studies, peacebuilding, international relations theory, political ideas and research methods.

I currently convene the following modules:

POL122 - Gender and the World
POL238 Oppression and Resistance
POL6611 Feminist and Decolonizing Approaches to International Relations- Bodies, Coloniality, Knowledge.

Supervision Expertise

violence prevention
gender politics
masculinities
civil conflict
foreign fighters
sexual violence and related areas.