Jonathan Luke Austin

Associate Professor
University of Copenhagen

Monographs

  1. Austin, JL. (Forthcoming). Violence Across Borders, in preparation for submission.
  2. Austin, JL. (2017). Small Worlds of Violence: A Global Grammar for Torture. Geneva: IHEID.

Articles

  1. Austin, JL. and Griffiths, M. (2026). “Two Black Boxes, Walter Benjamin, and Unmaking Violence,” Sensate: A journal for experiments in critical media practice, in press.
  2. Austin, JL. (2026). “Is all decolonialism metaphorical? On the aesthetics of decolonizing humanitarian futures,” Review of International Studies, accepted, in press.
  3. Austin, JL. and Griffiths, M. (2025). “How to Stop Killing People,” e-flux Architecture, 2025.
  4. Austin, JL. et al. (2025). “Editorial : Editorial: The Future of Humanitarian Design and e-flux Architecture,” e-flux Architecture, 2025.
  5. Austin, JL. (2025). “Is it happening? Inverting Situational Awareness,” Critical Studies on Security, 13 (1).
  6. Austin, JL. and Chandler, D. (2024). “Encounter, Critique, and Post-Critique: A Play in Two Acts,” Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 52 (3).
  7. Austin, JL. Chandler, D. Daoudy, M., Floyd, R., Rothe, D., and Simangan, D. (2024). “At the crossroads – critical perspectives on the study of climate security,” Geoforum, 155 (8).
  8. Austin, JL. and Leander, A. (2024). “The Active Form of Security: Technology and the Material-Aesthetic Script,” Science, Technology, and Human Values, 49 (4).
  9. Austin, JL. and Bramsen, I. (2024). “Visual (Data) Observation in International Relations: Attentiveness, close description, and the politics of seeing differently,” Review of International Studies, 50 (6).
  10. Austin, JL. and Leander, A. (2023). “Making International Things: Designing World Politics Differently” Global Studies Quarterly, 3 (4).
  11. Austin, JL. and Leander, A. (2023). “What if we were there? The value of technical making and engineering for the study and practice of Political Science,” Global Studies Quarterly, 3 (4).
  12. Austin, JL. (2023). “The Plasma of Violence: An exploration of political evil as a population problem,” Review of International Studies, 49 (1).
  13. Monsees, L., Liebetrau, T., Austin, JL, Leander A., Srivastava, S. (2023). “The Transversal Politics of Big Tech,” International Political Sociology, 17 (1).
  14. Austin, JL. and Bramsen, I. (2022). “Affects, emotions, and interaction: The methodological promise of video data analysis in peace research,” Conflict, Security and Development 22 (5).
  15. Austin, JL. and Leander A. (2022). “The State of the Sublime: Aesthetic Protocols and Global Security,” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 50 (3).
  16. Austin, JL. (2022). “Seeing all evil: The global cruelty of digital visibility,” Global Studies Quarterly, 2 (2).
  17. Austin, JL. (2021). “The Public, its Problems, and Post-Critique,” International Politics Reviews, 9 (2).
  18. Austin, JL. and Leander, A. (2021). “Designing-With/In World Politics: Manifestos for an International Political Design,” Political Anthropological Research in International Social Sciences, 2 (1).
  19. Austin, JL. (2020). “The Poetry of Moans and Sighs: Designs for, and against, violence” FRAME: Journal of Literary Studies, 33 (2).
  20. Austin, JL. (2020). “The Departed Militant: A portrait of joy violence, and political evil,” Security Dialogue, 51 (6).
  21. Austin, JL. (2019). “Towards an International Political Ergonomics,” European Journal of International Relations, 25 (4).
  22. Austin, JL. (2019). “Critique and Post-Critique,” Security Dialogue, 50 (4S).
  23. Austin, JL. Bellanova, R. & Kaufmann, M. (2019). “Doing and Mediating Critique: An Invitation to Practice Companionship,” Security Dialogue, 50 (1).
  24. Austin, JL. (2019). “A Parasitic Critique for International Relations,” International Political Sociology, 13 (2).
  25. Austin, JL. (2019). “Security Compositions,” European Journal of International Security, 4 (3).
  26. Austin, JL. (2018). “(De)Securitization Dilemmas: The Simultaneous Enaction of Securitization and Desecuritization,” Review of International Studies, 44 (2).
  27. Austin, JL. (2017). “We have never been civilized: Torture and the Materiality of World Political Binaries,” European Journal of International Relations, 23 (1).
  28. Austin, JL. & Wennmann, A. (2017). “The Political Economy of Business Engagement in Violence Prevention,” Conflict, Security & Development, 17 (6).
  29. Austin, JL. (2016). “Becoming a Torturer: Towards a Global Ergonomics of Care,” International Review of the Red Cross, 98 (903).
  30. Austin, JL. (2016). “Torture and the Material-Semiotic Networks of Violence Across Borders,” International Political Sociology, 10 (1).
  31. Austin, JL. (2012). “Facebook and Fanatics: Islam and the Arab Revolutions.” Regulating Religion, Summer 2012.

Book chapters

  1. Austin, JL. (2026). “Guerrilla Designs,” in Future Wars and Global Politics: Critical Perspectives, edited by Mark Lacy, London: Routledge, under review.
  2. Austin, JL. (2025). “Human Rights,” in the Elgar Encyclopedia of International Relations, London: Elgar, in press.
  3. Austin, JL. (2026). “Cigarettes,” in Making Things International 3, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, under review.
  4. Austin, JL. and Leander, A. (2024). “The Future of Academic Expertise,” in Handbook of Knowledge and Expertise in International Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  5. Austin, JL. (2023). “The Ecology of Violence,” in Routledge Handbook of the Future of Warfare, London: Routledge.
  6. Austin, JL. and Leander, A. (2023). “Decomposing the Californian Aesthetic,” in Sensing Collectives – Aesthetic and Political Practices Intertwined, Jan-Peter Voß, Nora Rigamonti, Marcela Suarez, Jacob Watson (Eds), Berlin: Transcript.
  7. Austin, JL. (2023). “Dangerous Fieldwork,” in Research Methods in Critical Security Studies, Salter, M., Mutlu, C. & Frowd, P. (Eds)., London: Routledge. 3rd Edition.
  8. Austin, JL. (2023). “Why Perpetrators Matter,” in Contesting Torture: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Lang, T. Faye, D. & Cox, R. (Eds)., London: Routledge.
  9. Austin, JL. and Leander, A. (2022). “Visibility: Practices of Seeing and Overlooking,” in Conceptualizing International Practices: Directions for the Practice Turn in International Relations, Bueger, C., Drieschova, A. & Hopf, T. (Eds), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  10. Austin, JL. (2021). “Hot Tea with Sugar and the Translation(s) of Torture,” in Translations of Security, Berling, TV., Gad, U., Petersen, KL. & Waever, O. (Eds.), London: Routledge.
  11. Austin, JL. (2020). “Accessing Lifeworlds: Getting people to say the unsayable,” in Secrecy and Methodology in Critical Security Research, De Goede, M. Pallister-Wilinks P., & Bosme, E. (Eds)., London: Routledge, pp. 97-111.
  12. Austin, JL. (2019). “Posthumanism and Perpetrators,” in Routledge Handbook of International Perpetrator Studies, Knittel, S. & Goldberg, Z. (Eds). London: Routledge, 169-180.
  13. Austin, JL. (2018). “Understanding the grammar of the city: Urban safety and peacebuilding practice through a semiotic lens,” in Urban Safety and Peacebuilding: New Perspectives on Sustaining Peace in the City, Wennmann, A. and Jutersonke, O. (Eds)., London: Routledge, 8-27.

Special Issues

  1. Humanitarianism.
    e-flux Architecture, 2025-2026.

  2. Making is thinking: Design, craft, and the practice of international relations.
    Global Studies Quarterly, 3 (4).

  3. Doing and Mediating Critique (with Rocco Bellanova and Mareile Kaufmann) [PDF]
    Security Dialogue, 50 (1).

  4. Composing Global Security [PDF]
    European Journal of International Security, 4 (3).

Original Datasets

  1. Austin, JL. (2019). The Violence in Action Dataset (VIAD).
    A unique dataset containing over 1,000 videos of war crimes, filmed by perpetrators, and distributed on online platforms. Data is coded both quantitatively on key metrics (location, type of violence, intensity of violence, number of perpetrators) and qualitatively through an ethnomethodological sequencing method outlining the individual and group corporeal morphologies.
  2. Austin, JL. (2019). The Practicing Violence Dataset (PRAVDA).
    A unique dataset based on the material-semiotic coding of training materials used by military and policing forces in various nation states, outlining the ‘ideal-type’ practices intended to prevent violent human rights abuses, to be used in conjunction with the Violence in Action Dataset (described above).

Other Writing

  1. Austin, JL. (2025). “Anyone can become a torturer. And all of us, in some way, already know how to torture / Jeder von uns kann ein Folterer werden. Und jeder weiss auch, wie man foltert,” Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), 11.01.25 (German), 24.01.25 (English). Full length research interview with Swiss newspaper of record (c. 5000 words).
  2. Austin, JL. (2025). “Malembe, Malembe? Technology for Mental Health in Detention,” Humanitarian Design, Working Paper, available at: http://www.humanitarian.design/adapt.
  3. Austin, JL. (2025). “Humanitarianism is Indefensible: A critical pragmatic call for its abolition,” Humanitarian Design, November 2025.
  4. Austin, JL. (2025). “Why are you watching? A photo essay,” Humanitarian Design, January 2025. Available at: https://humanitarian.design/2025/01/13/the-end/
  5. Austin, JL. And Griffiths, M. (2024). “Synthetic Vision for Humanitarian Subversion,” Humanitarian Design, October 2024. Available at: https://humanitarian.design/2024/10/07/synthetic-vision-for-humanitarian-subversion/.
  6. Austin, JL. (2024). “Hors-piste, juste sous l’équateur: Technical dreams in Kinshasa,” Humanitarian Design, May 2024. Available at: https://humanitarian.design/2024/05/26/hors-piste-juste-sous-lequateur-technical-dreams-in-kinshasa/
  7. Austin, JL. (2023). “Bridging the Gap,” The University of Copenhagen, podcast on best pedagogical practices for research-teaching integration. Available at: https://nyheder.ku.dk/podcasts/closing-the-gap/.
  8. Austin, JL. (2021). Celui à qui les tortionnaires se confient. Bern : Horizons. Full length profile of my work on political violence in the Swiss National Science Foundation research magazine. The profile is available in English, French, and German, both online and in print.
  9. Austin, JL. (2019). Sousveillance in detention, Geneva: Violence Prevention Initiative White Paper Sreries.
  10. Austin, JL. (2018). L’Entretien Jet d’Encre #14, Avec Jonathan Luke Austin, Geneva : Jet d’enrce. Profile and interview of my work. Available in both French and English.
  11. Austin, JL. (2018). Faces of Peace/Visages de la paix. University of Geneva and Geneva Peacebuilding Platform, full-length profile of my work on violence prevention.
  12. Austin, JL. (2017). The Poverty of Style in IR. Blog post in the ‘Duck of Minerva’, among the most influential para-academic outlets in international relations. This article was the most popular posted in that year.
  13. Austin, JL. (2017). The Germination of Abusive Violence and its Restraint, Geneva: The Violence Prevention Initiative White Paper Series.
  14. Austin, JL. & Wennmann, A.. (2017). The Private Sector and Violence Prevention in Kenya, 2007-2013, Commissioned for the United Nations and World Bank, Preventing Violent Conflict, a UN-World Bank Group Study, World Bank Group Chief Technical Specialist Fragility, Conflict and Violence Group, Geneva.
  15. Austin, JL. & Wennmann, A. (2017). The Private Sector and Violence Prevention in Kenya, 2007-2013, Commissioned for the project ‘The Business Community as a Peacebuilding Actor’ undertaken by CDA Collaborative Learning, the Africa Centre for Dispute Settlement (ACDS), and the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).
  16. Austin, JL. (2016). Understanding the Grammar of the City: A Semiotic Perspective on the Urban Safety and Peacebuilding Nexus, Geneva: Geneva Peacebuilding Platform White Paper Series.
  17. Austin, JL., et al. (2011). Hamas and the Peace Process: Resistance, Rejectionism, Reconciliation? Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies: University of St Andrews.

In Progress

  • The Politics of Companionship: Attached research in a world of detachment
  • Global Patterns of Torture in Russian-occupied Ukraine
  • What’s driving AI adoption in humanitarianism? Despair, bullshit jobs, and political failure
  • Débrouillez-vous! Decolonialism, its discontents, and ground truths
  • Going mad in the postcolony: Notes on the globalization of fatigue, from the Congo
  • Inverting Humanitarian Design: Towards a guerilla humanitarianism
  • There is no nexus: Humanitarian design and its futures
  • Post-Critique and International Relations Theory.
  • Violence in Action: The Local Ordering of War Crimes.
  • A portrait of the Syrian torturer as a young man
  • Speculative Fabrication: Affirmative Tinkerings with Materiality
  • Logics of Change-Making in World Politics
  • Post-Cognitive International Relations
  • Photographic auto-elicitation as ethnographic method (with Stephanie Perazzone)
  • Being-Mutamash: Minor critique in the Arabic literary milieu
  • Emotional self-regulation in political violence: Insights from user-generated videos