Biography
Audrey Alejandro is Fellow in Qualitative Methodology at the Department of Methodology. She received her PhD in Political Science from Sciences Po Bordeaux, Centre Emile Durkheim, in 2015. She is co-editor of the book series Trends in European IR, Palgrave Pivot, with Knud Erik Jørgensen, Felix Rösch, Helen Turton, and Alexander Reichwein.
Research interests
Audrey’s research focuses on the social and political conditions of the globalisation of knowledge, knowledge-power, and innovation. Her PhD research investigated the alleged ‘Western academic dominance’, a dominance which is commonly criticised in social sciences. She compared the internationalisation of International Relations publications using the case studies of Brazil and India. Her work comprises a strong reflexive dimension, exploring the capacity of ‘Western’ critical scholars (including herself) to provide an alternative to the Eurocentric practices and discourses they denounce. She has recently shifted the focus of her research from academic to technical knowledge and, more particularly, technical assistance policies regarding agriculture and sustainable development.
Methodologically, her research uses interviews, participant observation, discourse analysis and comparative approaches. She is interested in making reflexivity more accessible. Her current research aims at producing a discourse analysis framework enabling the reflexive analysis of Eurocentrism in academic discourses.
Publications
Book project in progress based on her PhD research, Worlding beyond the West, Routledge.
“International Relations and Foreign Policy in India: Policy-oriented Works between Discipline and State” in Theorizing Indian Foreign Policy: Opening Up and Assessing the Toolbox for the Twenty-first Century, Mischa Hansel, Raphaёlle Khan and Mélissa Levaillant (eds.), Routledge, 2017.
“Réflexivité et ‘domination occidentale’ - Avancées et perspectives pour un programme de recherche prometteur en Relations Internationales” [“Reflexivity and ‘Western Dominance’ – Progresses and prospects of a promising research program in International Relations”], Études Internationales, 2016.
“Walking the reflexive talk”, e-International Relations, September 2016.
“Un observatoire des enjeux agro-environnementaux de développement durable dans la région Caraïbe: observer et accompagner les marchés et l’action publique”, [“An Observatory of the agro-environmental stakes of sustainable development in the Caribbean: monitoring and advising markets and public policies”] with Marie Hrabanski, Gilles Massardier, Fréderic Lançon et Jacques Marzin, CIRAD/ART-DEV, for the European Union INTERREG Project Cabaré, Montpellier, December 2015.
“China’s External Environmental Policy: the Case of China’s Environmental Impact in Africa”, with Daniel Compagnon, Environmental Practice, Vol. 15, N° 3, September 2013, pp. 220 – 227.