Matthew Abbey

Profile

I am a Lecturer in Critical Human Geography at the University of Leeds. My research focuses on state violence, border regimes, the colonial present, artificial intelligence, queer theory, and the politics of knowledge. I previously completed my PhD at the University of Warwick. My forthcoming book Queer Migration at the Colonial Borders of Europe is forthcoming with Bristol University Press in 2027. Published and forthcoming articles can be found in: Theory, Culture, & Society; Social Text; Surveillance & Society; Sexualities; Identities; European Journal of Cultural Studies; Visual Studies; and Porn Studies.

I have three current major strands of my research:

First, I am developing a monograph rethinking narratives about surveillance from the perspective of psychoanalysis, psychosocial studies, and queer theory. This project rethinks the positivist value given to data within the political economy of surveillance through acknowleding its ambigious relationship to meaning.

Second, I am writing a series of articles on the futurity of geopolitics. This project highlights the forms of anticipation, prediction and speculation used to intervene within the present governance of borders, security, and climate change, while also reconsidering the grammar of chronology used to describe the future’s impact on the present.

Third, I am developing a project on what autistic and other neurodivergent types of perception offer existing understandings of surveillance, policing, counterterrorism and other types of securitisation.

I am open to supervising PhD students in my areas of interest. I am also actively seeking PhD students working on projects related to AI and social justice. I would be particularly interested in supporting PhD students working on queer/neurodivergent/anti-colonial/feminist approaches to critical human geography.

Qualifications

• PhD, University of Warwick
• MA, Sciences Po Paris
• BA, Monash University

Research groups and institutes

• Research and innovation