Rob Aitken, PhD

Email

raitken@ualberta.ca

Phone

(780) 492-0539

Address

10-29 Tory (H.M.) Building

11211 Saskatchewan Drive NW

Edmonton AB

T6G 2H4

Email

raitken@ualberta.ca

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science.  I completed a BA in Political Studies and Comparative Development Studies from Trent University and a MA and PhD in Political Science from Carleton University.

My research focuses on International Political Economy (IPE) and the everyday contexts of global financial practices. My research responds to the questions: What are the various links that connect everyday worlds and global financial markets writ large? What are the cultures that sustain those connections? How might those connections be resisted? Empirically this entails attention to the ways in which financial institutions have used a variety of cultural practices in attempting to mobilize everyday, working-class or 'unbanked' populations. I am also interested in the historical use of culture in the construction and reconstruction of political economic order including cultural forms of resistance. Theoretically, my work is animated by governmentality, cultural economy and post-structuralist methods in IPE. I would welcome supervising graduate students working on critical approaches to IPE, global finance and the cultural analysis of economic life.