Dr Tatevik Mnatsakanyan

Informed by her inter-disciplinary background, she draws on political theory and philosophy, cultural studies, linguistic and sociological approaches to interrogate changing modes of “sovereignty”, “security”, political violence, and their relationship to forms of resistance. These uniting themes run through Tatevik’s research in two specific and substantive subject areas: political contestations around UK and US pursuance of “war on terror” over the past decades; and multiple forms of the politics of denial, in particular, genocide denial with implications for postgenocide reconciliation. She also explores the interconnections and entanglements of development-security-sustainability and forms of violence circulating in these political domains.

Tatevik joined the Institute for Diplomacy and International Governance in 2016, after completing her PhD in Politics (International Relations) at the University of Exeter, UK. She has a multi-disciplinary background with previous degrees in International Studies, Diplomacy, as well as Linguistics and Area Studies. Before joining Loughborough University London, Tatevik taught International Relations and Security Studies in the Department of Politics, University of Exeter. Before embarking on her PhD, she gained several years of experience working for the World Bank, and the Embassy of Armenia in London. Such practitioner work experience, combined with her academic background across disciplines, informs her current teaching and research.

Leadership Roles

Tatevik is Director of Studies (Teaching-focused) for Loughborough University London. Working alongside Prof Jo Tacchi, Associate Dean of Teaching, she leads on teaching-related policy adoption, implementation and good practice across the School in London (over all Institutes and Master’s programmes at Loughborough London). 

She is also one of the London-based Academic Integrity Leads. 

Teaching

Tatevik teaches a new module she has introduced recently, entitled The Politics of Violence: Development, Security and Sustainability, which is explicitly transdisciplinary and aims to contribute to programmes across Institutes at Loughborough London, in particular the programmes at the Development and Social Change initiative, such as MSc International Development and MSc International Sustainable Development, as well as programmes across the Institute for Diplomacy and International Governance. She has also designed and teaches the modules International Security, and Peace-building, and co-produced and teaches (with Aidan McGarry) the module Diplomacy in the Digital Age.

Tatevik completed her PhD in Politics (International Relations) at the University of Exeter, UK in 2015. She also holds an MA in Diplomatic Studies from the University of Westminster, London, and an MA in Political Science and International Studies from the American University in Armenia. Her undergraduate education was in Linguistics and Area Studies, from Yerevan State University of Languages and Social Sciences, Armenia.

Tatevik gained several years of teaching experience at the Department of Politics, University of Exeter, during and after completion of her PhD, teaching modules on Theories of International Relations, and Security Studies.

Tatevik’s research is in international security, with a particular emphasis on critical approaches to security and to peace-building and postconflict reconciliation. Inspired and informed by her inter-disciplinary background, she draws on political theory and philosophy, cultural studies, and linguistics and sociology, to interrogate political contestations around “security” and what this means for changing modes of “sovereignty” and “subjectivity” and thereby resistance and possibilities for political transformation. Substantively, her work is on the UK and US pursuance of “war on terror” over the past decades and how this has shaped and been shaped by encounters with anti-war resistance and critique. Theoretically, this research draws on the works of linguistic philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin and psychoanalyst and political thinker Julia Kristeva. A second strand of her research is in Genocide Studies, aiming to animate a dialogue between the fields of Genocide Studies and International Relations previously somewhat disengaged from each other’s debates. In this work, drawing on Giorgio Agamben’s political thought, and through a conjunctural postcolonial lens, she brings Critical International Relations theorisations on “sovereignty,” “violence,” and “subjectivity” to bear on interrogations of genocide denial, and postgenocide reconciliation.

Publications 

1. Tatevik Mnatsakanyan, 'Denials “From Seabed to Space”: Assemblages of (In)Security and Denial in the Politics of Security', Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 50, issue 2, pp. 352-378. 
2. Tatevik Mnatsakanyan, ‘Sovereignty, Subjectivity, Denial: The Armenian Genocide, Generative Denials and Postgenocide Politics in Contemporary Turkey’, in Klejda Mulaj (ed.) Postgenocide: Interdisciplinary Reflections on the Effects of Genocide (Oxford University Press, 2021).
3. Tatevik Mnatsakanyan, ‘The Carnivalesque and Resistance,’ in Jenny Edkins (ed.) Routledge Handbook of Critical International Relations (London: Routledge, 2019).

Tatevik is currently working on:

• Book project titled The Carnivalised Subject of “War on Terror”: Carnivals of Resistance and Terror, and Transmutations of a Long War  

Tatevik successfully co-supervised to completion (along with her colleague Christina Oelgemoller) a PhD project by Aminu Muhammad on the politics of migration through a postcolonial lens, on the case of Nigeria.

Tatevik has initiated and convenes an IDIG series of events titled Dialogues in Peace. Dialogues in Peace will periodically bring together Loughborough and external scholars working within conflict and peace studies, and various practitioners involved in conflict, peace, and reconciliation, in order to engage in productive dialogues and conversations around specific challenges, themes, and cases; to generate new ideas, and forge new collaborations. As a result, it aims to further the teaching in conflict and peace at IDIG by enriching student experience; and to generate ideas and collaborations for new research projects and initiatives across disciplines and institutions.