Jennifer Fluri

  • Professor
  • Department Chair
  • GEOGRAPHY

Education

Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University, 2005

Research Interests

Feminist political geography; conflict security and development; South/Southwest Asia

Regional and Thematic Interests

South Asia
Cultural Studies

Profile

I am a feminist political geographer concentrating on conflict, security, and aid/development in South and Southwest Asia. I am particularly interested in understanding the spatial organization and corporeal representations and experiences of individuals and groups working and living within conflict zones.

My doctoral research focused on the use of public and private space by the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), a clandestine feminist-nationalist organization. My interest in this organization was sparked through my interactions with their international supporters network in the United States. I compared how this organization operates and represents itself internationally through the use of the Internet and its geographic placement and operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan. RAWA's feminist politics remains unconventional within an Afghan context, while their methods for disseminating their sociopolitical beliefs expanding their organization relies on conventional methods such as social reproduction and educational indoctrination.

My post-doctoral research project examined the spatial arrangements, interactions, and gender roles within the international "community" in Kabul, Afghanistan in comparison with the "local" Afghan population. The geopolitics and geo-economics associated with the placement of International workers and their interactions with Afghans were central to this project. I also became increasing interested in the differentiated methods used by Afghans and internationals to provide for their own security in spaces increasingly beset by political violence and a general state of insecurity.

My current research focuses on the geopolitics and geo-economics of gender, security, and violence. This project will examine the gendered geographies of security and violence through three interrelated aspects of bio-politics: biometrics, biotechnologies, and gender-based military operations. I am interested in understanding the interconnected links between the various technologies associated with preventative security, enacting or mitigating violence, and reconstructing bodies injured by violence. For this project I seek to examine the ways in which bodies are differentially classified and categorized by States and corporations through the use of bio-technologies and the how these classifications are gendered and spatially organized. This project will also examine the ways in which biotechnologies are used to reconstruct the injured body and how these reconstructions create new forms of political meaning, social value, and economic opportunities.

Recent Publications

Books 

  • Fluri, Jennifer L. and Rachel Lehr. 2017. The Carpetbaggers of Kabul and Other American-Afghan Entanglements: Intimate Development, Geopolitics and the Currency of Gender and Grief. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. 
  • Trauger, Amy and Jennifer L. Fluri.  2019. Engendering Development: Global Capitalism, Intersectionality and Inequality. New York and London: Routledge.  
  • Oberhauser, Ann M., Jennifer L. Fluri, Risa Whiston, and Sharlene Mollett. 2018. Feminist Spaces: Gender and Geography in a Global Context. New York and London: Routledge. 
  • Mitchell, Katharyne, Reece Jones, and Jennifer L. Fluri (Editors). 2019. Critical Geographies of Migration. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.  

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

  • Molana, Hanieh, Deirdre Conlon, Jennifer L. Fluri, and Nancy Hiemstra. 2023. “Conference organizing in the hybrid age: Lessons from the Fourth International Feminist Geography Conference” Professional Geographer. DOI: 10.1080/00330124.2023.2258395.
  • Fluri, Jennifer L. 2023. “Ask a Feminist: Jennifer Fluri Discusses the Gender Politics of the US Withdrawal from Afghanistan with Sandra McEvoy.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 48 (2): 509-526.
  • Fluri, Jennifer L. and Rachel Lehr. 2023. “Humanitarianism and Development in Afghanistan Since 1979” in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History. Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.704.
  • Fluri, Jennifer L. 2023. Evacuation Lost: Activism and Scholarship in a time of Geopolitical Crisis” in Kate Boyer, LaToya Eaves, and Jennifer Fluri (Editors) Activist Feminist Geographies. Bristol University Press.
  • Fluri, Jennifer L. 2023. “Political Geography Progress Report III:” Progress in Human Geography. 47 (2): 365-373. DOI: 10.1177/03091325221150016.
  • Fluri, Jennifer L. 2022. Geographies of Humor.  In Oxford Bibliographies. Ed. Barney Warf. New York: Oxford University Press, DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199874002-0248.
  • Faria, Caroline and Fluri, Jennifer L. 2022. “Allure and the spatialities of war, nationalism and development: Towards a geography of beauty” Geography Compass. https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12652.
  • Shrestha, Rupak and Fluri, Jennifer L. 2022. “Geopolitics of security and surveillance in Nepal and Afghanistan: A comparative analysis” Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space. DOI: 10.1177/23996544221115952
  • Fluri, Jennifer L. 2021. “Political Geography II: Violence” Progress in Human Geography. DOI: 10.1177/03091325211062187.
  • Fluri, Jennifer L. 2020. “Political Geography I: Extractions” Progress in Human Geography, 45 (4): 855-865. 
  • Fluri, Jennifer L., Abby Hickcox, Shae Frydenlund, and Ridge Zackary. 2020. “Assessing racial privilege through property: Geographies of Racial Capitalism” Geoforum. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.06.013 
  • Fluri, Jennifer L. and Rachel Lehr. 2019. “We are Farkhunda”: Geographies of Violence, Protest and Performance” Signs: A Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 45 (1): 149-173. 
  • Fluri, Jennifer L. and Jessie Hanna Clark. 2020. “Political Geographies of Humor and Adversity” Political Geography, 68: 122-124.  
  • Fluri, Jennifer L. 2019. “What’s so funny in Afghanistan? Jocular Geopolitics and the everyday use of humor in protracted precarity” Political Geography, 68: 125-130.  
  • Fertaly, Kaitlin and Jennifer L. Fluri. 2019. “Producing Knowledge in Fieldwork: Research Associates, Geopolitics, and Production Credits.” The Professional Geographer, 71(1): 75-82.  
  • Fluri, Jennifer L. and Amy Piedalue. 2017. Co-editors of themed section, “Embodying Violence: Critical Geographies of Gender, Race, and Culture.” Gender, Place and Culture, 34(4): 534-54.  
  • Bagheri, Nazgol and Jennifer L. Fluri. 2019. “Gendered Circular Migrations of Afghans: Fleeing conflict and seeking opportunity” In Mitchell, K., R. Jones, and J.L. Fluri (Editors) Handbook of Critical Geographies of Migration. Edward Elgar Publishing. (130-141). 
  • Lehr, Rachel and  Jennifer L. Fluri. 2019. “Mother Tongue for Mothers Only?” in S. Brunn & Roland Kehrein (eds.) The Changing World Language Map. Springer Press. DOI:10.1007/978-3-319-73400-2_57-1.

Updated October 2023