My article that develops an understanding of piracy as a community of practice and investigates why Somali pirates rely on the narrative that their actions are a form of protection is now available as Open Access with Third World Quarterly.  In the article I develop a practice–theoretical account to provide the first systematic investigation of the justification of Somali piracy. Arguing for an understanding of piracy as a ‘community of practice’, I show how this community is organised by a ‘grand narrative’ that projects piracy as a quasi-state practice of the protection of sovereignty against foreign intruders. Paying attention to narrative provides an explanation for the persistence of piracy and assists us in understanding the phenomenon. Relying on publicly available interviews with pirates, I deconstruct this grand narrative and detail the different functions of the narrative in the light of situations in which it is told. The article develops an alternative perspective on piracy based on the study of practice, narrative and situation that provides new avenues for the study of clandestine, illicit or violent practices.

Maritime security has been a long-neglected issue on the African security agenda. This situation is changing incrementally, not the least because of the attention to the problem of piracy in the continent’s waters. The “piracy momentum” has led to a significant intensification of maritime security cooperation. This article analyzes current processes, strategies, and institutional responses to maritime security challenges. Drawing on a practice-theoretical constructivist reading of regimes, the article investigates how continental actors interact, develop a common repertoire, and engage in joint enterprises to address maritime security challenges. It argues that several nascent transnational collectives are developing that can be interpreted as providing the nucleus of maritime security communities. It is one of the first articles analyzing African maritime security from a theoretically informed perspective. It is available as Open Access with the Journal African Security. 

From the 5th to the 6th of December I will participate in “The Blue Conference 2013” on Maritime Risk and Risk Management. The conference is organized by Copenhagen Business School and the Maritime Development Center Europe. At the conference I will give a presentation that discusses how the new maritime security agenda places new demands on the shipping industry, including new modes of public-private relations. Further details on the conference are available here

On November 28th I will give a presentation at the international conference on: “The threat of contemporary piracy and the role of the international community” organized by the Istituto Affari Internazionali and the International Institute for Humanitarian Law. The one day conference in Rome brings together a number of academics and policy practitioners to discuss the current state of counter-piracy. The program is available here.

On October 30th I will present the draft of a new paper titled “Problems, Practices, Pirates: Outline of a Theory of Problematization” at the research seminar series of the Centre of Advanced Security Theory (CAST), Copenhagen, where I am a visiting fellow until December. The paper intends to develop a framework for studying problematization practices and their interaction by drawing on the case of maritime piracy. Drawing on ideas first presented in my 2013 Global Policy paper I develop a typology of five problematizations of piracy and discuss how these are coordinated as well as create controversy in policy making. Further information is available here

The Economic and Social Research Council of the UK will sponsor my research on piracy and maritime security for the next three years. The project titled “Counter-Piracy Governance – A Praxiographic Analysis” is funded under the Future Research Leader Scheme. In the project I will study the different institutional responses to piracy and maritime insecurities with a focus on East and West Africa.