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Audra Mitchell (she/her or they/them) holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Political Ecology at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and the Department of Political Science. From 2015-18, Audra held the CIGI Chair in Global Governance and Ethics at the Balsillie School of International Affairs. Professor Mitchell has previously worked at the University of York, UK (2010-15) and the University of St. Andrews, UK (2009-10), and has held visiting fellowships at the Universities of Queensland (Australia) and Edinburgh (UK). Audra completed a PhD in Politics and International Studies at the Queen’s University of Belfast, UK (2009).
Deeply multi-disciplinary in nature, Audra’s work has made seminal contributions in and across the fields of international studies, global and international environmental studies, international theory and philosophy, security studies, the environmental humanities, geography and other fields. For instance, it has been instrumental in shaping more-than-human discourses of international theory and ethics, and in analyzing the relationships between global structural violence and ecological collapse. Audra’s recent work engages diverse Indigenous knowledge systems to re-frame how global patterns of plant and animal extinction are understood and addressed. It has also sparked new conversations about anti-oppressive approaches to global threats and processes of futuring, foregrounding the knowledge systems of globally-marginalized communities.
Professor Mitchell has published over 50 peer-reviewed works, and led a grant portfolio of over $2 million from a range of international funders. They have also co-founded and led several international partnerships, networks and community-based research projects. For example, a recent partnership supported community- and land-based research projects in 19 Indigenous communities across Canada, Australia, the United States, Malaysia and the Philippines. Audra has also supervised or mentored more than 40 early career researchers and community-based researchers. They have provided consulting and/or expert advice to government ministries, NGOs, museums, funders and other bodies in 7 countries in global political ecology and inclusivity in research contexts.
Professor Mitchell is a disabled (Autistic, Dyspraxic and physically disabled) scholar, whose lived experience and commitment to intersectional disability justice informs their ongoing work on global patterns of violence, exclusion and marginalization.
Audra is a settler of Ukrainian and British descent living and working as an uninvited intergenerational guest on the lands of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe peoples.
- Explaining the links between global ecological crises and structural violence, including but not limited to colonialism, racism, ableism, anthropocentrism, capitalism, hetero-patriarchy and eugenics
- Anti-oppressive futures, and processes of futuring led by globally-marginalized groups (including but not limited to racialized, Indigenous, disabled, 2SLGBTQIA, land-based and more-than-human communities). Transforming mainstream discourses on futures (including governmental, scientific and popular narratives) to address their investments in oppressive logics and structural violence.
- Analyzing and elaborating the contributions of disabled, Crip, Mad, neurodivergent, d/Deaf and other knowledge systems to global ecological thought and action
Select Recent Academic / Professional Awards
- Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Global Political Ecology, Wilfrid Laurier University, 2018-24 (renewable).
- SSHRC Insight Grant, “Autistic Knowledge Ecologies and Global Ecological Futuring”, 2023-28 (PI).
- SSHRC Partnership Development Grant, “Decolonizing Against Extinction” (PI) , 2018-22.
- SSHRC Connection Grant, “Caring for Kin, Confronting Global Disruptive Change” (PI), 2018-19.
- SSHRC Knowledge Synthesis Grant, “How Can Indigenous Knowledges Respond to the Global Extinction Crisis?” (co-CI)
- Independent Social Research Foundation Residential Research Group Award, 2016.
- CIGI Chair in Global Governance and Ethics, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 2015-18.
- Independent Social Research Foundation Early Career Fellowship, 2013-14.
Select Recent Publications
- Mitchell, Audra. 2024. (Bio)plurality: Confronting the Violence of Extinction and Conservation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press (in press).
- Mitchell, Audra, 2024. “Working with the Worlds:Can International Relations Be(come) Earthly?” International Relations (special issue on IR and Environmental Politics).
- Mitchell, Audra, 2023. “Non-human, More-than-human and Inhuman International Relations and International Studies” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies. Oxford University Press and International Studies Association.
- Mitchell, Audra, 2023. “Holding On, Letting Go: Escaping the Contemporary Museum” in Wayne Modest and Claudia Agustat, Spaces of Care: Confronting Colonial Afterlives in European Ethnographic Museums. Bielefield: Transcript Verlag, pp. 59-69.
- Mitchell, Audra, 2022. “Resonant Relations: Eco-lalia, Political Echology and Autistic Ways of Worlding” Environment and Planning E: Society and Space.
- Mitchell, Audra and Aadita Chaudhury, 2020. “Worlding beyond ‘the’ End of ‘the’ World: White Apocalyptic Visions and BIPOC Imaginaries” International Relations, Vol. 34, No. 3 (open access).
- Bawaka Country including A. Mitchell, K. Lloyd, S.Wright, S.Suchet-Pearson, B. Ganambarr, R. Ganambarr and D. Maymaru. 2020. “Dukarr lakarama: Listening to Guwak, Talking Back to Space Colonization”. Political Geography, online first.
- Mitchell, Audra and N. Theriault. 2020. “Extinction” in “Anthropocene Unseen: A Lexicon for the Anthropocene to Come“. Cultural Anthropology, online first (open access).
- The Creatures’ Collective including KJ Hernández, J. Rubis, Z. Todd, N. Theriault, A. Mitchell, S. Wright, and Bawaka Country including L. Burrarrwanga, R. Ganambarr, M. Ganambarr-Stubbs, B. Ganambarr, D. Maymaru and S. Suchet-Pearson. 2020. “The Creatures Collective: Manifestings Against Extinction”. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, online first.
- Leduc, Tim, A. Mitchell, J. Rubis and N. Theriault. 2019. “Living Protocols: (Re)making Indigenous Worlds in the Face of Extinction”. Special edition of Social and Cultural Geography, online first.
- Mitchell, Audra. 2019. “Can IR Confront the Cosmos?” in Routledge Handbook of Critical International Relations. Edited by Jenny Edkins. London: Routledge, pp. 51-60.
- Mitchell, Audra. 2018. “(Re)vitalizing laws, (re)making treaties: Indigenous-led resurgence against the ‘Sixth Mass Extinction’”. Social and Cultural Geography, online first.
- Mitchell, Audra. 2017. “Beyond Biodiversity and Species: Problematizing Extinction”. Theory, Culture and Society 33: 23-42.
- Mitchell, Audra. 2016. “Is IR Going Extinct?“. European Journal of International Relations.
- Burke, Anthony, S. Dalby, S. Fishel, D. Levine and A. Mitchell. 2016. “Planet Politics: A Manifesto from the End of IR”. Millennium Journal of International Studies 44 (3): 499-523.
- Mitchell, Audra. 2016. “Extinction”. Gender: Nature. Edited by Iris Van Der Tuin. New York: MacMillan.
- Mitchell, Audra. 2015. “Thinking Without the Circle: Marine Plastic and Global Ethics”. Political Geography 47: 77-85.
- Mitchell, Audra. 2014. “Only Human? Towards Worldly Security”. Security Dialogue 45 (1): 5-21.
- Mitchell, Audra. 2014. International Intervention in a Secular Age: Re-enchanting Humanity. London: Routledge.
- Mitchell, Audra. 2011. “Quality/Control: International Intervention and the ‘Everyday’”. Review of International Studies 37 (4): 1623-45.
- Mitchell, Audra and O. Richmond. 2011. Hybrid Forms of Peace: From the Everyday to Post-liberalism. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Contact Info:
Office hours: Online, by appointment (in the syllabus for current students).
Languages spoken: English, French