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ProfessorLaura J. Shepherd

(she/they)

Professor of International Relations

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Orcid identifier0000-0003-3069-8596 (opens in a new tab)⁠
  • Professor of International Relations
    Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Research projects & supervision summary

Areas of Postgraduate Research Supervision: Laura normally welcomes enquiries from prospective research students interested in feminist, postcolonial, and decolonial perspectives on security studies and international relations, the United Nations system, and the Women, Peace and Security agenda. Laura is not currently accepting postgraduate research students for 2026 entry.

 

Current HDR students include: 

  • Viv Harvey-Wong. Thesis title: ‘What's in it for us?’ Engaging Men and Boys in Sexual and Reproductive Health Programming for Women and Girls.
  • Lindsay Day. Thesis title: The Contemporary Australian Extreme Right: Masculinity and Gender Representations. (Associate supervisor)
  • Kate Scott. Thesis title: Deradicalisation from the Manosphere.
  • Charlotte Carney. Thesis title: Coloniality, Hybridity & Justice: An analysis of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) and the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL).
  • Georgia Peters. Thesis title: Stable economies/stable gender order: A queer analysis of the International Monetary Fund's discourses on women and gender.

RESEARCH PROJECTS & ACTIVITIES

  • PROJECT
    PhD Thesis: Deradicalising Misogyny: Countering Violence and Extremism the Manosphere
    1 Mar 2023 - 31 Aug 2026
    Project leaders:
    Collaborators:
    In 2014, a man named Elliot Rodgers instigated a shooting spree that resulted in the deaths of six individuals and injuries of 14 others, before taking his own life. Rodgers was an incel member of the online 'manosphere', a confederacy of different online men’s rights movements that generally share a deep hatred for women and believe that current gender relations victimise and subordinate men. Growing numbers of similar violent terror attacks motivated by extreme online misogyny have led the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation to label Incels as a national security risk in 2021. Ultimately, efforts to prevent and respond to misogynist terrorism must include a recognition of the role that the manosphere plays in promoting and normalizing aggressively sexist attitudes and behaviours. Consequently, my research aims to understand why individuals join and ultimately leave the manosphere, to better inform conversations about deradicalisation strategies.
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    Affective Dimensions of Australian Neo-Nazi Activism on Telegram: Gender and The Extreme Right
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    Beyond Victims and Survivors: Discourses of Gender and Migration in Thailand
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    Coloniality Hybridity Justice: An analysis of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) and the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL).
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    Deradicalising Misogyny: Countering Violence and Extremism the Manosphere
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    Experiences of Female Ex-Combatants in the Maoist Insurgency in Nepal: Endless Battles and Resistance
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    Gender and International Development: The stories we tell and their impact on gender equality
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    Normalising Islamophobia: Constructing “permission to hate” through mainstreaming of Islamophobic far-right political discourse
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    Prefiguring Digital Territories: Settler Security and Colonial Logics in U.S. Cybersecurity Policy
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    Stable economies/stable gender order: A queer analysis of the International Monetary Fund's discourses on women and gender
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    State-Civil Society Relationship in the Implementation of UNSCR 2242
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    Symbolic Inclusion and Structural Exclusion: Indigenous Perspectives, Media Narratives, and Climate Transition
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    The (Re)construction of Ukrainian Identity During Revolutions
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    The Links Between Gender, Radicalisation, and Prevention of Violent Extremism in the Maldives
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    The myth of South American pacifism and the Women, Peace and Security agenda
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    The Pleasures of War
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    The Racialisation of Immigration Selection Policy: A Comparative-Historical Analysis of Australia and the UK
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    To protect or to pollute: The gendered and racialised logics of U.S. Presidential climate change narratives
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    Un-stating order: The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria