Joseph H. Campos II, Ph.D.

Associate Graduate Faculty

Departments of Political Science,

Honors,and Peace Institue

University of Hawai`i, Manoa

camposj@hawaii.edu

Interests / Research Projects

Given my research interests in international relations theory, international political economy, international law, critical security studies, peace/conflict resolution studies, and comparative politics, I engage questions as to identity formation, legitimacy, authority, security, and control.  Specifically, I am interested in the way in which discourse is developed as a tool of power to influence various issues and events.  In examining discourse and its uses, I also question how popular media is appropriated as a mechanism for strengthening perspectives that support accepted knowledge about the global environment.

I am currently working on an examination of the Fetish of Peace.  This project will explore the ways in which the concept of Peace is articulated thorough many agencies, while at the same time the actual implementation of peaceful actions seem to negligible.  Thus, in my view, peace becomes a fetish of agency, never fully developing and rarely stable.  It is the goal of this project to investigate ways in which the concept of Peace can fully gain traction and relevance.  This project has a target completion of summer 2012.
 
In addition to this current project I am interested in a comparative study of insurgency groups and the discourse of “freedom fighter/terrorist” in Central and South America (Che Guevara to Subcomandante Marcos); exploration into how Cataluña has achieved a level of independence without employing the violence of País Basco; the ways in which the “exceptional,” democratic state has attempted to promote its version of democracy and the effects that this promotion has on the political; the ways in which a state becomes a sentimental nation that employs notions of security in identity formation; the effects of immigration and migration on the international political arena; and the role of insecurity in the creation of the us/them dichotomy.

Finally I intend to work on addressing the question of what it means to undermine the political grammar of sovereignty and to explore how different linguistic practices open up competing political opportunities.  This project will seek to recast traditional conversations about identity, peace, regional governance and international security upon new temporal movements of global politics.  I argue that the pressing political question becomes not whether to move, but, on the contrary, given that everything is already moving, how can the political economy of movements be repoliticized?  In order to accomplish this, I will begin with the assertion that since the practices and locations of sovereignty are on the move, it is important to understand how the prominent articulations of sovereignty have changed in different historical and geographic contexts.  Specifically, it explores the relationship between historical articulations of sovereignty and contemporary enactments of the technological, cultural and discursive boundaries of sovereignty.  This research intersects with key issues in international relations surrounding citizenship, governance, identity and resistance by continuing to explore the following questions: what is the future of sovereignty?  What is the relationship between politics, time and movement?  How do complex global capital flows constitute new political subjects/citizens?  By strengthening the core themes of power, violence and freedom, I feel these questions can complement any program in intelligence and national security.