William Walters

Biography

I am a Professor of Politics in the Departments of Political Science and Sociology & Anthropology at Carleton University, Ottawa. As an undergraduate I trained in chemistry at Imperial College, London, before doing graduate studies in politics at City University of New York and York University, Toronto. I have published widely in such areas as political sociology, political geography, citizenship studies, security and insecurity, and Foucault studies. Broadly speaking, the method I have followed in my work is to study the objectification of human experience in specific domains – unemployment, migration, and, most recently, state secrecy. I ask what politics means in these domains, what forms it is capable of taking, and what lessons we can extrapolate from these encounters. I am currently working on two projects. The first is a book (co-authored with Dr Seantel Anaïs) entitled The Production of Secrecy (forthcoming with Routledge). The second is a study of what I call air deportation which focuses on the role of civil aviation in the forced removals of migrants in and from Europe. I am also a co-editor of the book series Mobility & Politics.

Research Interest

Migration studies, Foucault, political sociology, citizenship studies, secrecy