J. Marshall Beier

J. Marshall Beier, PhD. Professor of Political Science at McMaster University.

Broadly, my teaching and research interests turn on the constitution of and contestation around political subjecthood. Much of this is rooted in critical international relations and security studies through childhood-informed approaches. Established and ongoing areas of inquiry deal with intersections of childhoods and militarism, issues of children’s rights and political subjecthood across various settings, visual and affective economies of children in abject circumstances, and imagined childhood as a technology of global governance. I have also worked on issues of colonial knowledge production, human security, weapons proliferation, arms control, and disarmament. I am a 3M National Teaching Fellow and member of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, interested in pedagogy both in practice and as an area of research focus. I am active with and serve on the Faculty Advisory Committee of the McMaster Children and Youth University and carry out research on other such initiatives outside of North America.

I am currently leading a multi-year project on the militarization of childhood and another on childhood and the governance of armed conflict. Among the outputs of the first project are a forthcoming book, two edited volumes, and special issues of the journals Critical Studies on Security and Childhood. Publications arising from the second project include an edited volume and a forthcoming special issue of the journal Globalizations as well as several journal articles and chapters in edited collections. I also work on issues of children’s rights and social/political participation in light of impediments to the exercise of rights both in local contexts and in connection with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, contributions from which include several articles in refereed journals. Related research considers issues of children’s political subjecthood with particular emphasis on questions of responsibility pertaining to trauma visited on young people both within and beyond zones of conflict.

Adjacent my core research, I have had a long-standing interest in social meaning-making practices around a range of security issues. Projects in this vein have focused variously on ballistic missile defence, the movement to ban antipersonnel landmines, revolutionary change in military affairs, and emerging autonomous weapon systems.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Childhood and Public Memory

© 2026 J. Marshall Beier