Showcasing Graduate Research
DALL.E generated image of border surveillance from DPhil Roxana Akhmetova’s research.
The first Graduate Research Showcase of the term was held in the Warden’s Lodgings on 23 November. Entitled “Locking People Up and Locking Them Out”, the themed night brought together research on history of the English prison system, contemporary staffing of English prisons by former military personnel, and the increasing use of algorithms and AI in border security and immigration decisions throughout the world.
Richard Bell, HMP Strangeways
Drawing on his research on the growing political and social significance of prisons in 16th and 17th century England, Dr Richard Bell, a former Career Development Fellow in History at Keble, presented on the early abolitionist movement which grew out of the increasing frequency of imprisonment for debt during that time.
Laura Haas, HMP Wormwood Scrubs
Laura Haas, a DPhil student in Criminology at Keble and the current MCR President, followed up with a presentation on her interview- and observation-based research on the influence, both positive and negative, of previous military training and deployment experiences to theatres of war on prison staff, using data from prisons of different security levels and with different population focuses.
Roxana Akhmetova, Surveillance in East Jerusalem
Roxana Akhmetova, an Anthropology DPhil at Keble, then spoke on the prominence, promise, and pitfalls of the increasing use of algorithms which precede, or even bypass, human input with respect to border surveillance and the evaluation of applications for asylum or immigrant status.
Together, the three talks emphasised the development of the security state and its links, historical and contemporary, to the social, political, military, and technological sectors of society.
