BIO

Monique J. Beerli is an interdisciplinary social scientist investigating the transformation and politics of global governance practices, with a thematic focus on humanitarianism. She holds a double degree in political science, with a specialization in international relations, from Sciences Po Paris and the University of Geneva. Having successfully received several research grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation between 2018 and 2021, Dr Beerli has been a visiting postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley, the New School for Social Research, Free University of Brussels, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the University of Lausanne. From 2019 to 2023, she acted as a founding co-editor of Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences (PARISS), an interdisciplinary journal that promotes transversal approaches to world politics, whilst questioning dominant conventions of contemporary academic practice. Prior to joining the Global Studies Institute, she worked as the Executive Director of the Geneva Graduate Institute’s Global Governance Centre.

Dr Beerli’s main research and teaching interests include international political sociology, global humanitarianism, data-driven governance, expertise, international NGOs, and archival practices. Experimenting with a range of qualitative methods—including ethnography, archival research, and biographic interviewing—her work explores power dynamics that structure and arise in connection to global governance practices of protection, lifesaving, and care. In her current book project, she examines the rise of humanitarian security professionals within the humanitarian social field. In light of this seemingly insignificant transformation in the division of humanitarian labor, her research demonstrates how humanitarian NGOs come to consider some of the world’s most vulnerable populations as beyond saving. Her work has appeared in International Political Sociology, Global Governance, and International Peacekeeping. In recent years, she has started to explore the archival practices of international humanitarian organizations, attending to the politics of how these actors record their activities and the (in)humane acts of others.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

International political sociology; global governance; global humanitarianism; data-driven governance; expertise; international NGOs; archiving

PUBLICATIONS

Monographs

• 2013. Solidarity Intervention: An Ethnography of Nonviolent Transnational Contention in the West Bank. Graduate Institute ePapers. Geneva: IHEID.

Peer-reviewed articles

• 2020. “The Art of Writing Social Sciences: Disrupting the Current Politics of Style.” With Tugba Basaran, Didier Bigo, and Emma McCluskey P.A.R.I.S.S. 1()1: 9-38.
• 2018. “Saving the Saviors: Security Practices and Professional Struggles in the Humanitarian Space.” International Political Sociology 12 (1): 70-87.
• 2017. “Legitimating Organizational Change through the Power of Quantification: Intra-Organizational Struggles and Data Deviations.”  International Peacekeeping 24 (5):780-802.
• 2017. “Powered and Disempowered by Numbers: Data Issues in Global Governance.” With Isabel De Siqueira and Christopher Leite. Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations 23 (1):27-30.
• 2017. “The Power to Count and the Stakes of Counting: An Inquiry into the Quantified Production of Humanitarian Security.” Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations 23 (1):57-70.

Special Issues

• 2020. “The Social Sciences and the Politics of Style.” With Tugba Basaran, Didier Bigo, and Emma McCluskey. PARISS 1(1).
• 2017. “Powered and Disempowered by Numbers: Data Issues in Global Governance.” With Isabel Rocha de Siqueira and Christopher Leite. Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations 23(1).

Book Chapters

• 2023. “Biographic Interviews.” In International Organizations and Research Methods: An Introduction, edited by Fanny Badache, Leah Kimber, and Lucile Maertens. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
• 2023. “Surveys.” With Clara Egger. In International Organizations and Research Methods: An Introduction, edited by Fanny Badache, Leah Kimber, and Lucile Maertens. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
• 2023. “Interviewing and LinkedIn.” In International Organizations and Research Methods: An Introduction, edited by Fanny Badache, Leah Kimber, and Lucile Maertens. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
• 2016. “Humanitarian Security Manuals: Neutralising the Human Factor in Humanitarian Action.” With Fabrice Weissmann. In Saving Lives and Staying Alive: Humanitarian Security in the Age of Risk Management, edited by Michaël Neuman and Fabrice Weissman, 71-81. London: Hurst Publishers.
• 2016. “Suivez le guide! Les manuels de sécurité et la mise en ordre autoritaire des organisations humanitaires.” With Fabrice Weissmann. In Secourir sans périr: La sécurité humanitaire à l'ère de la gestion des risques, edited by Michaël Neuman and Fabrice Weissman, 137-154. Paris: CNRS Editions.

Blogs

• 2023. “Quenching the UN’s Data Thirst and Measuring the SDGs: An Impossible Feat?” In The Global, edited by the Global Governance Centre, Geneva Graduate Institute.