Undergraduate

• 2I03 - Global Politics
• 3Q03 - The Causes of War
• 4YR3 - Child/Youth Rights and Security in Global Political Perspective

Graduate

• 731 - Forgetting, Remembering, and Finding Actors in IR

Children, Rights, and Security: Global Performatives, Local Practices
SSHRC Insight Grant, $95,845 (2019-23)

Concluded in 1989, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is the most widely endorsed human rights instrument in the world. In everyday practice, however, children's rights are routinely ignored in myriad contexts. In Canada, a patchwork of different policies and practices has resulted in wide variation in the degree of implementation of the UNCRC from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The same is true both between and within other countries the world over, with many of those in the privileged Global North underperforming significantly. Against this backdrop, there has as yet been little in the way of International Relations scholarship engaging children as rights holders. To what extent can we understand children as rights-bearing subjects as opposed to objects of protections conferred via the granting of rights by other subjects? Related to this, how may we navigate the tension between this and their relative powerlessness? These are questions not easily addressed from a standpoint in which children figure as objects of protection and political subjecthood remains very much the exclusive preserve of the adult world. This research project examines everyday institutions and practices affecting children’s rights and security in the Global North and the extent to which they have variously implemented, failed to implement, or may even impede UNCRC rights.

The Militarization of Childhood: Practices and Pedagogies
SSHRC Insight Grant, $94,391 (2014-18)

Allied with a much needed critical turn in the vast and still rapidly growing child soldier literature, this project asks whether there may be ways in which childhood is militarized beyond the Global South through enactments of militarism that have drawn much less in the way of critical inquiry. Uncovering and examining such enactments and exploring their relatively more subtle circulations in tension with the child soldier debates is a principal aim of the project, and one which brings into relief the under-interrogated and everyday ways in which children's lives may be militarized in less scrutinized contexts and settings. At the same time, the project seeks to reveal complex workings of agency too often obscured by overly reductionist and ascriptive notions of victimization. Moving beyond a focus on zones of conflict, the project works to bring to view everyday pedagogies whereby myriad knowledges, performances, practices, and competencies may function to militarize children's lives in advanced (post)industrial societies. Treating these circulations as pedagogies is not to suggest that there need necessarily be a conscious instrumentality giving rise to them. The project therefore takes important conceptual cues from actor-network theory and the notion of 'heterogeneous assemblages,' understanding that actors can be part of an assemblage without necessarily sharing the same aims. This underscores the indeterminacy of militarized knowledges and, at the same time, highlights childhood as a site of agency inasmuch as a sensitivity to everyday practice locates agency in learning.

Childhood, Militarism, and Pedagogies of the Everyday
McMaster University Arts Research Board Grant, $6,275 (2011)

Thinking beyond the Global South and recognizing that militarism circulates and interpenetrates childhood experience in ways that are much less conspicuous than child soldiering raises questions of critical relevance to but not yet taken up in the disciplinary study of international relations. What is the relationship between militarism and childhood in advanced (post)industrial societies and what can be learned about its sources and implications? To what extent is childhood important as a site for the translation, maintenance, and (re)production of militarized knowledges and practices? How do prevailing conceptualizations of victimization limit our understanding of children's capacity for autonomous action, creativity, and resistance? In what ways are less visible circulations of militarism similar to and different from more explicit and purposefully-conceived forms? What can an approach that takes children seriously as bona fide politico-ethical actors reveal to us about the ways in which the disciplinary study of international relations frames political possibilities? In addressing these questions, this research project brings together a focus on everyday sites of both structured and unstructured learning with a commitment derived from postcolonial theory to recovering agency from overly simplistic ascriptions of victimhood. The project explores more explicitly militarized knowledges and practices in global politics while looking also to some of the less obvious continuities with these same knowledges and practices in various contexts of children's active learning and leisure activities. This approach, together with themes of everyday pedagogy and childhood agency, proposes a corrective to too narrow a focus on zones of conflict that might make it seem as though militarism affects the lives of children only in distant and politically fraught places.

Postcolonial Diplomacies: Indigenous Peoples and the International Negotiation of Sovereignties and Selves
SSHRC Standard Research Grant, $71,733 (2005-08)
McMaster University Arts Research Board Grant, $4,550 (2004)

Since the early-1990s, Indigenous voices in international politics have been growing in strength, in numbers, and in their demonstrated ability to affect outcomes on a range of important issues. At the same time, international bodies like the Organization of American States have begun to take seriously the participation of Indigenous peoples and, equally noteworthy, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues has enjoyed a steadily increasing profile since its formal adoption by the UN General Assembly in October 2000. With these and other developments, global politics is witnessing qualitatively new forms of diplomacy. In investigating these developments, this research project works through three interrelated themes. The first of these turns on questions of change, inquiring into how existing institutions, arrangements, norms, and practices of global governance are transformed by Indigenous diplomacies and, no less, how the latter have been affected by the need to work through the former. The second theme involves highlighting and clarifying continuities on both sides of the encounter, seeking to better appreciate and understand commonalities, compatibilities, and areas of convergence. Finally, points of divergence are examined with a view to revealing compromises around notions of sovereignties and selves that have enabled these diplomatic encounters and engagements.

 

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Books:

	J. Marshall Beier and Helen Berents, eds. Forthcoming 2023. Children, Childhoods, and Global Politics. Bristol: Bristol University Press.
	J. Marshall Beier and Jana Tabak, eds. 2021. Childhoods in Peace and Conflict. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
	J. Marshall Beier, ed. 2020. Discovering Childhood in International Relations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
	J. Marshall Beier, ed. 2017. Childhood and the Production of Security. London: Routledge.
	J. Marshall Beier, ed. 2014. The Militarization of Childhood:Thinking Beyond the Global South. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
	J. Marshall Beier, ed. 2011. The Militarization of Childhood:Thinking Beyond the Global South. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
	J. Marshall Beier and Lana Wylie, eds. 2010. Canadian Foreign Policy in Critical Perspective. Toronto: Oxford University Press.
	J. Marshall Beier, ed. 2009. Indigenous Diplomacies. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
	J. Marshall Beier. 2009. International Relations in Uncommon Places: Indigeneity, Cosmology, and the Limits of International Theory. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
	J. Marshall Beier. 2005. International Relations in Uncommon Places: Indigeneity, Cosmology, and the Limits of International Theory. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Journal Special Issues:

	J. Marshall Beier and Jana Tabak. 2020. Guest Editors, Children, Childhoods, and Everyday Militarisms, Childhood: Journal of Global Child Research 27(3).
	J. Marshall Beier 2015. Guest Editor, Children, Childhoods, and Security Studies, Critical Studies on Security 3(1).
	J. Marshall Beier. 2007. Guest Editor, Indigenous Diplomacies, Canadian Foreign Policy 13(3).

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Journal Articles:

• J. Marshall Beier. 2022. "'This Changes Things': Children, Targeting, and the Making of Precision." Cooperation and Conflict 57(2): 210-225. doi: 10.1177/00108367211050274.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2022. "Governing Conflict through Childhood." Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 23(1): 52-58. doi: 10.1353/gia.2022.0009.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2021. "Exceptional Childhood and COVID-19: Engaging Children in a Time of Civil Emergency." Childhood: Journal of Global Child Research 28(1): 154-169. doi: 10.1177.0907568220977629.
• J. Marshall Beier and Jana Tabak. 2020. "Children, Childhoods, and Everyday Militarisms." Childhood: Journal of Global Child Research 27(3): 281-293. doi: 10.1177/0907568220923902.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2020. "Short Circuit: Retracing the Political for the Age of 'Autonomous' Weapons." Critical Military Studies 6(1): 1-18. doi: 10.1080/23337486.2017.1384978.
• J. Marshall Beier and Sandeep Raha. 2020. "Cultivating an Ethos: Collegial Co-Discovery in a Children and Youth University." Children's Geographies 18(1): 44-57. doi: 10.1080/14733285.2019.1584270.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2019. "Implementing Children's Right to be Heard: Local Attenuations of a Global Commitment." Journal of Human Rights 18(2): 215-229. doi: 10.1080/14754835.2018.1515620.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2019. "Binding Gestures: A Customary Norm Regarding the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child?" Children's Geographies 17(3): 309-320. doi: 10.1080/14733285.2018.1495315.
• Krista Paquin, Beth Levinson, J. Marshall Beier, and Sandeep Raha. 2018. "The Role of Partnerships in Delivering a Children's University Program: A Case Study of the McMaster Children and Youth University." E-Mentor 16(4), 8-13. doi: 10.15219/em76.1370.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2018. "Ultimate Tests: Children, Rights, and the Politics of Protection." Global Responsibility to Protect 10(1-2): 164-187. doi: 10.1163/1875984X-01001009.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2015. "Shifting the Burden: Childhoods, Resilience, Subjecthood." Critical Studies on Security 3(3): 237-252. doi: 10.1080/21624887.2015.1114459.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2015. "Children, Childhoods, and Security Studies: An Introduction." Critical Studies on Security 3(1): 1-13. doi: 10.1080/21624887.2015.1019715.
• J. Marshall Beier and David Mutimer. 2014. "Pathologizing Subjecthoods: Pop Culture, Habits of Thought, and the Unmaking of Resistance Politics at Guantanamo Bay'" International Political Sociology 8(3): 311-323. doi: 10.1111/ips.12059.
• David Mutimer, Kyle Grayson, and J. Marshall Beier. 2013. "Critical Security Studies: An Introduction." Critical Studies on Security 1(1): 1-12. doi: 10.1080/21624887.2013.801126.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2011. "Dangerous Terrain: Re-Reading the Landmines Ban through the Social Worlds of the RMA." Contemporary Security Policy 32(1): 159-175. doi: 10.1080/13523260.2011.556857.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2007. "Grave Misgivings: Allegory, Catharsis, Composition." Security Dialogue 38(2): 251-269. doi: 10.1177/0967010607078528.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2007. "Inter-National Affairs: Indigeneity, Globality, and the Canadian State." Canadian Foreign Policy 13(3): 121-131. doi: 10.1080/11926422.2007.9673446.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2006. "Outsmarting Technologies: Rhetoric, Revolutions in Military Affairs, and the Social Depth of Warfare." International Politics 43(2): 266-280. doi: 10.1057/palgrave.ip8800144.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2005. "Doubting Hephaestus: Canada and Ballistic Missile Defence." Contemporary Security Policy 26(3): 431-446. doi: 10.1080/13523260500500567.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2005. "Bear Facts and Dragon Boats: Rethinking the Modernization of Chinese Naval Power." Contemporary Security Policy 26(2): 287-316. doi: 10.1080/13523260500190393.
• J. Marshall Beier and Samantha L. Arnold. 2005. "Becoming Undisciplined: Toward the Supradisciplinary Study of Security." International Studies Review 7(1): 41-61. doi: 10.1111/j.1521-9488.2005.00457.x.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2003. "Discriminating Tastes: 'Smart' Bombs, Non-Combatants, and Notions of Legitimacy in Warfare." Security Dialogue 34(4): 411-425. doi: 10.1177/0967010603344003.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2003. "'Emailed Applications are Preferred': Ethical Practices in Mine Action and the Idea of Global Civil Society." Third World Quarterly 24(5): 795-808. doi: 10.1080/0143659032000132858.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2002. "Siting Indiscriminacy: India and the Global Movement to Ban Landmines." Global Governance 8(3): 305-321. doi: 10.1163/19426720-00803005.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2001. "Postcards from the Outskirts of Security: Defence Professionals, Semiotics, and the NMD Initiative." Canadian Foreign Policy 8(2): 39-49. doi: 10.1080/11926422.2001.9673244.
• J. Marshall Beier and Ann Denholm Crosby. 1998. "Harnessing Change for Continuity: The Play of Political and Economic Forces Behind the Ottawa Process." Canadian Foreign Policy 5(3): 85-103. doi: 10.1080/11926422.1998.9673151.

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Chapters in Books:

• J. Marshall Beier. 2022. "Critical Security Studies II - Narratives of Security: Other Stories, Other Actors," in Alan Collins, ed., Contemporary Security Studies, 6th edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 111-125.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2021. "Traditions, Truths, and Trolls: Critical Pedagogies in the Era of Fake News," in Heather Smith and David Hornsby, eds., Teaching International Relations in a Time of Disruption. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 63-73.
• J. Marshall Beier and Jana Tabak. 2021. "Other Childhoods: Finding Children in Peace and Conflict," in J. Marshall Beier and Jana Tabak, eds., Childhoods in Peace and Conflict. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1-19.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2020. "Subjects in Peril: Childhood Between Security and Resilience," in J. Marshall Beier, ed., Discovering Childhood in International Relations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 219-242.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2020. "Making Sense of Childhood in International Relations," in J. Marshall Beier, ed., Discovering Childhood in International Relations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1-19.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2019. "Poststructural Insights: Making Subjects and Objects of Security," in Alan Collins, ed., Contemporary Security Studies, 5th edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 111-125.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2019. "Ultimate Tests: Children, Rights, and the Politics of Protection," reprinted in Bina D'Costa and Luke Glanville, eds., Children and the Responsibility to Protect. Leiden: Brill Nijhoff, 158-181.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2016. "Indigenous Diplomacy," in Costas M. Constantinou, Pauline Kerr, and Paul Sharp, eds., SAGE Handbook of Diplomacy. Los Angeles: SAGE, 642-653.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2016. "Critical Interventions: Subjects, Objects, and Security," in Alan Collins, ed., Contemporary Security Studies, 4th edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 108-121.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2012. "Dangerous Terrain: Re-Reading the Landmines Ban through the Social Worlds of the RMA," reprinted in Neil Cooper and David Mutimer, eds., Reconceptualizing Arms Control: Controlling the Means of Violence. London: Routledge, 157-173.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2011. "War Stories: Militarized Pedagogies of Children's Everyday," in J. Marshall Beier, ed., The Militarization of Childhood: Thinking Beyond the Global South. New York: Palgave Macmillan, 95-110.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2011. "Everyday Zones of Militarization," in J. Marshall Beier, ed., The Militarization of Childhood: Thinking Beyond the Global South. New York: Palgave Macmillan, 1-15.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2011. "Thinking and Rethinking the Causes of War," in Craig A. Snyder, ed., Contemporary Security and Strategy, 3rd edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 128-146.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2010. "At Home on Native Land: Canada and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples," in J. Marshall Beier and Lana Wylie, eds., Canadian Foreign Policy in Critical Perspective. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 175-186.
• J. Marshall Beier and Lana Wylie. 2010. "What's So Critical about Canadian Foreign Policy?" in J. Marshall Beier and Lana Wylie, eds., Canadian Foreign Policy in Critical Perspective. Toronto: Oxford University Press.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2009. "Forgetting, Remembering, and Finding Indigenous Peoples in International Relations," in J. Marshall Beier, ed., Indigenous Diplomacies. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 11-27.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2009. "Indigenous Diplomacies as Indigenous Diplomacies," in J. Marshall Beier, ed., Indigenous Diplomacies. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1-10.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2006. "Disarming Politics: Arms, Agency, and the (Post)Politics of Disarmament Advocacy," in Colleen Bell and Tina Managhan, eds., Exceptional Measures for Exceptional Times: The State of Security Post 9/11. Toronto: Centre for International and Security Studies, 207-228.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2005. "Articles of Faith: International Relations and 'Missionary' Scholarship," in Gareth Griffiths and Jamie S. Scott, eds, Mixed Messages: Materiality, Textuality, Missions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 203-219.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2004. "'Emailed Applications are Preferred': Ethical Practices in Mine Action and the Idea of Global Civil Society," reprinted in Kristian Berg Harpviken, ed., The Future of Humanitarian Mine Action. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 19-32.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2003. "From the Altar to the Lectern: Two Discourses of Salvation," in Kyle Grayson and Cristina Masters, eds., Theory in Practice: Critical Reflections on Global Policy. Toronto: Centre for International and Security Studies, 253-271.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2002. "Beyond Hegemonic State(ment)s of Nature: Indigenous Knowledge and Non-State Possibilities in International Relations," in Geeta Chowdhry and Sheila Nair, eds., Power, Postcolonialism and International Relations: Reading Race, Gender and Class. London: Routledge, 82-114.
• J. Marshall Beier. 1999. "Of Cupboards and Shelves: Imperialism, Objectification and the Fixing of Parameters on Native North Americans in Popular Culture," in James N. Brown and Patricia M. Sant, eds., Indigeneity: Construction and Re/Presentation. Commack: Nova Science Publishers, 36-57.
• J. Marshall Beier and Ann Denholm Crosby. 1998. "Harnessing Change for Continuity: The Play of Political and Economic Forces Behind the Ottawa Process," reprinted in Maxwell A. Cameron, Robert Lawson, and Brian Tomlin, eds., To Walk Without Fear: The Global Movement to Ban Landmines. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 269-291.

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Other:

• Rebecca Collins-Nelsen, J. Marshall Beier and Sandeep Raha. 2021. "Bullying, racism, and being 'different': Why some families are opting for remote learning regardless of COVID-19." The Conversation (16 September).
• J. Marshall Beier. 2018. "Review of Robyn Linde, The Globalization of Childhood: The International Diffusion of Norms and Law Against the Child Death Penalty." Perspectives on Politics 16(2): 581-582. doi: 10.1017/S1537592718000166.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2016. "Review of Cecilia Jacob, Child Security in Asia: The Impact of Armed Conflict in Cambodia and Myanmar." Global Responsibility to Protect 8(4): 451-453. doi: 10.1163/1875984X-00804008.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2007. "Review of M.I. Franklin, Postcolonial Politics, the Internet, and Everyday Life: Pacific Traversals Online." International Feminist Journal of Politics 9(1): 122-123. doi: 10.1080/14616740601066507.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2005. "Review of Jean-Marc Coicaud, Michael W. Doyle, and Anne-Marie Gardner, The Globalization of Human Rights." International Journal 60(2): 597-599.
• J. Marshall Beier. 2002. Ann Denholm Crosby, James Fergusson, Frank Harvey, and Douglas Ross, "Roundtable: Missile Defence in a Post-September 11th Context." Canadian Foreign Policy 9(2): 111-130. doi: 10.1080/11926422.2002.9673285.
• Samantha Arnold and J. Marshall Beier, eds. 2000. (Dis)Placing Security: Critical Re-evaluations of the Boundaries of Security Studies. Toronto: Centre for International and Security Studies.
• J. Marshall Beier and Steven Mataija, eds. 1998. Arms Control and the Rule of Law: A Framework for Peace and Security in Outer Space> Toronto: Centre for International and Security Studies.
• J. Marshall Beier and Steven Mataija, eds. 1997. Cyberspace and Outer Space: Transitional Challenges for Multilateral Verification in the 21st Century. Toronto: Centre for International and Security Studies.
• J. Marshall Beier and Steven Mataija, eds. 1996. Verification, Compliance and Confidence-Building: The Global and Regional Interface. Toronto: Centre for International and Strategic Studies.
• J. Marshall Beier and Steven Mataija, eds. 1995. Proliferation in All Its Aspects Post-1995: The Verification Challenge and Response. Toronto: Centre for International and Strategic Studies.
• Steven Mataija and J. Marshall Beier, eds. 1992. Multilateral Verification and the Post-Gulf Environment: Learning from the UNSCOM Experience. Toronto: Centre for International and Strategic Studies.