Vision Statement

My academic background spans multiple sub-disciplines in social sciences, including political science, international relations, cultural anthropology and development sociology. My current research combines these fields. A central theme running through my work is how state and non-state actors in small and island states can develop and utilise material and ideational resources, including identities, to achieve their objectives. This theme emerged during my undergraduate study in cultural anthropology and development sociology when I specialised in the social construction of ethnic and national identities, nation building, state formation and political power, culminating in a thesis titled 'The Construction and Reinforcement of the Bhutanese Nation'. I further consolidated this theme during a master of science in political science (with a specialisation in international relations) and a doctoral degree in politics. Specifically, I investigated how successful Bhutanese and Qatari state actors are in exercising soft power to achieve their country’s foreign policy goals, including maintaining state sovereignty and territorial integrity, managing relations with major regional powers, increasing international visibility and status enhancement. I critically engaged with the concepts of political power, soft power and small states and developed a theoretical and conceptual framework to empirically investigate the exercise of soft power. This framework is grounded in the development and utilisation of identity discourses and practices. 

My academic backgrounds and research experiences inform my current research projects on the Ontological (In)Security of Pacific Island Countries and their Inhabitants in the Context of Climate Change (OSPICs), Geopolitics in the Pacific, Diplomacies of Non-Western Small States and the Soft Power of Pacific Island States.