Research Projects

LGBTIQ+ People in Situations of Conflict, Crisis, and Displacement

Media Articles

LGBTQ+ parents are being removed from their children’s birth certificates in Italy – here’s what’s behind this disturbing trend, The Conversation, June 2023 (with M. Neil)

Fanning the Flames of Hate: The Transnational Diffusion of Online Anti-LGBT+ Rhetoric and Offline Mobilisation, Global Network on Extremism and Technology, November 2022 (with A. Gohdes and A. Koh)

Queer Kinship and the Global Migration Regime, Migration-Muuttoliike, November 2022 (with R. Buxton)

How LGBT Refugees from Ukraine Are Highly Vulnerable, The Washington Post, April 2022 (with Y. Su)

Feeling the Heat in Los Montes de María, Oxford Review of Books, March 2022

‘It Gives Me Joy’: the LGBT Colombians embracing visibility in town with a legacy of abuse, The Guardian, February 2022 (with K. Stallone)

LGBT+ Refugees Should Be Resettled with Their Chosen Family, Thomson Reuters Foundation & Openly, May 2021 (with R. Buxton)

How COVID-19 aid is leaving LGBTQ+ people out, The New Humanitarian, June 2020

The Motherland of Gender Criticism, Slate, December 2019

Published Work

Brutality on display: media coverage and the spectacle of anti-LGBTQ violence in the Colombian Civil War, 2024, Third World Quarterly

The Transnational Force of Anti-LGBT+ Politics in Latin America, 2023, in The Right against Rights in Latin America (eds. L. Payne, J. Zulver, and S. Escóffier), Oxford University Press (with M. Mesquita), chapter available upon request

Sanctuary after Asylum: Addressing a Gap in the Political Theory of Refuge, 2022, American Political Science Review (with R. Buxton)

Is queer-and-trans youth homelessness a form of displacement? A queer epistemological review of refugee studies’ theoretical borders, 2022, Ethnic & Racial Studies

Introduction: LGBTIQ+ Refugees Virtual Issue, 2022, Journal of Refugee Studies (with S. Nandi and M. Bradley)

Queer kinship and the rights of refugee families, 2021, Migration Studies (with R. Buxton)

A Queer Approach to Understanding LGBT Vulnerability during the COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020, Politics & Gender, 16(5), 1101-1109 (with G. Reid)

In Progress

Toward a Queer Theory of Refugee, monograph under contract with University of California Press (with R. Buxton)

Gendered Violence, Moral Order, and Social Control during Colombia’s Paramilitary Incursion*, working paper available, under review

*winner of ISA LGBT Caucus Emerging Scholar Paper Award, 2021

Waging Stigma: Anti-LGBT Violence during the Colombian Civil War, monograph in progress

LGBTIQ+ People in Situations of Forced Displacement, special issue in Journal of Refugee Studies, forthcoming (co-editing with M. Balaguera, B Camminga, T. Dixson, A. Shekhar Chakraborty, and S. Nandi)

Brutality, Cruelty, and Social Difference During War

Media Articles

Atherton, K, What are the benefits of studying cruelty?, 2022, Inkstick Media, Review of The Ontology of Cruelty in Civil War

Published Work

Brutality on display: media coverage and the spectacle of anti-LGBTQ violence in the Colombian Civil War, 2024, Third World Quarterly

The Ontology of Cruelty in Civil War: the analytical utility of characterizing violence in conflict studies*, 2022, Global Studies Quarterly, 2(2)

*honorable mention for ISA Patricia Weitsman Award for Outstanding International Security Graduate Paper, 2022

In Progress

Violence against social difference: a research agenda, paper in progress

‘Why do armed groups brutalize? Insights into the social process of abjection’, paper in progress

Novel Theoretical Approaches to the Study of Political Violence

Media Articles & Policy Reports

Conflict Tipping Podcast 25: Queering the Colombian Conflict with Dr Samuel Ritholtz, Mediate.com, August 2023

LGBT+ Rights and the Transatlantic Alliance, Center for European Policy Analysis, June 2023, recorded panel discussion

Report of the Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, United Nations, July 2022, cites research with J. Hagen

Interview - Samuel Ritholtz, E-International Relations, Nov 2021

Published Work

Queer Conflict Research, edited volume in progress with Bristol University Press, February 2024 (co-editing with J. Hagen and A. Delatolla), please message for access to the volume, introduction available here

The ‘queer’ in conflict research as subject, structure, and method: initial epistemological considerations for the early career researcher, in Queer Conflict Research (eds. J. Hagen, S. Ritholtz, and A. Delatolla), Bristol University Press

Under Construction: Toward a Theory and Praxis of Queer Peacebuilding, 2023, Revista de Estudios Sociales (with J.F. Serrano-Amaya, J. Hagen and, M. Judge)

Construcción de paz cuir/queer (Queer Peacebuilding), 2023, special issue in Revista de Estudios Sociales of the Universidad de los Andres, (co-editors include J.F. Serrano-Amaya, J. Hagen, and M. Judge).