Dr Alex Hall
Senior Lecturer

Profile

Biography

Alex’s research focuses on the international securitisation of mobility and contemporary border politics in the west, drawing on interdisciplinary work from international relations, anthropology and critical security and border studies. She has conducted research into the everyday production and experience of security within immigration detention, and the rise of ‘smart’ e-border targeting systems in the UK and Europe.

She is currently investigating the relationship between discretion and the rise of risk technologies in security decisions, and is developing a project about security volunteers and vigilantes. 

Research

Overview

Alex is currently conducting research on the changing role of discretion within algorithmic-led decision-making in security contexts (broadly defined). She has previously investigated discretion within smart border targeting programmes, as a way of understanding the contemporary working of sovereign power at the border and the international governance of mobility. The project was entitled Decisions at the data border: the ethics of discretion in contemporary security practice and was funded by the British Academy.

She has also conducted an ethnographic study of a UK immigration removal centre, and has an interest in the securitised governing of mobility in the west. She is currently engaged in a project about the rise of security volunteers and vigilantes in UK and Europem which is supported by the Morrell Centre for Toleration and the University of York's Justice and Equality research theme. She leads a White Rose Collaboration Network entitled Europe, Migration and the New Politics of (In)security. 

Supervision

PhD Supervision:

• Anna Bailie: "A Politics of Isolation and Empowerment: Young People's Mental Health on Social Media "
• Burak Caliskan: "Enclaves in the Fergana Valley"
• Mikhail Kupriyanov: "Critical Constructivist Analysis of the Russian Strategic Culture and Strategic Weapons"
• Marynka Marquez: "Caught between Universal Standards and Local Contexts: York as a Human Rights City and the Search for Human Rights Alternatives"

Dr Alex Hall welcomes PhD applications in the following areas:

• Border security
• Critical security and everyday security practice
• Data technologies and borders
• Detention and immigration

Teaching

Undergraduate

Alex convenes the masters module ‘New Security Challenges’ and the third year module 'Border Politics'. She also contributes to the second year 'Political Enquiry' module.