John Morrissey

Professor Morrissey's work in historical, political and cultural geography draws upon the writings of Michel Foucault, Edward Said, Judith Butler and others in critiquing how practices of Western interventionism are underpinned by imperial and neoliberal discourses of security. His research has been concerned with key areas of human geography and international relations, ranging from historical colonial governmentality to contemporary geopolitics and security. More recently, he has begun work on the challenge of enacting transformative practice of 'human security' and of envisioning a political ecology 'more-than-human' sense of planetary precarity. His books include Haven (Edward Elgar Publishing), The Long War (University of Georgia Press), Spatial Justice and the Irish Crisis (Royal Irish Academy), Key Concepts in Historical Geography (Sage) and Negotiating Colonialism (Royal Geographical Society).

Professor Morrissey's research has been supported by a wide range of grants, including: the British Academy, the British International Studies Association, the Clinton Institute for American Studies, the Irish Research Council, National Library of Australia, National University of Ireland, and the University of Cambridge. He was a Government of Ireland Fellow in 2007/08 at the Center for Place, Culture and Politics at CUNY Graduate Center. This research culminated in a geopolitical history of CENTCOM for University of Georgia Press. In 2013/14 he was elected Quatercentenary Fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and Visiting Fellow at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. His work on an IRC project, Haven, critically examined the EU's contemporary securitization discourse on the Mediterranean humanitarian crisis. In 2021 he was appointed International Consultant on Human Security in the Human Development Report Office of the UN. In 2023 he was elected Visiting Fellow in International Relations at Australian National University, and in 2025 he was awarded a Stokes Fellowship at the National Library of Australia for a research project exploring the political ecology writing of Judith Wright.

Professor Morrissey holds the distinction of winning the President's Award for Teaching Excellence at University of Galway on two occasions. He has also won the the NAIRTL National Academy Award for Research and Teaching Excellence. Three key areas of teaching are:

Geopolitics and War
His undergraduate teaching focuses on political geography and geopolitics, imperialism and war.

Securitization and Interventionism
In critiquing international relations, his teaching systematically deconstructs the powerful securitization discourses underpinning forms of interventionism.

International Development
He is Programme Director of the MA in International Development, within which he teaches modules on geopolitics, human security and ethnography.