Staff profile

Louise Amoore is Professor of Political Geography and Deputy Head of Department. Her research and teaching focuses on aspects of geopolitics, technology and security. She is particularly interested in how contemporary forms of data and algorithmic analysis are changing the pursuit of state security and the idea of society. Her most recent book, Cloud Ethics: Algorithms and the Attributes of Ourselves and Others, is published by Duke University Press in Spring 2020. Among her other published works on technology, biometrics, security, and society, her book, The Politics of Possibility: Risk and Security Beyond Probability (2013)examines the governance of low probability, high consequence events, and its far-reaching implications for society and democracy. Louise’s research has been funded by the Leverhulme Trust, ESRC, EPSRC, AHRC, and NWO. She is appointed to the UK independent body responsible for the ethics of biometric and data-driven technologies. Louise is co-editor of the Journal Progress in Human Geography.

Louise's previous projects include her RCUK Global Uncertainties leadership fellowship (2012-2015). Her project 'Securing Against Future Events' (SaFE): Preemption, Protocols and Publics' examines how inferred futures become the basis for new forms of security risk calculus.

She has also conducted ESRC projects on the techniques and technologies of biometric and data-driven borders: 'Contested Borders' (2007-2009), a project within the ESRC's non-governmental public action programme. The work has produced new insights into how contemporary security practices enter and reconfigure public space.

'Data Wars: New Spaces of Governing in the European War on Terror' (2008-12) was a three year ESRC bilateral project in collaboration with Marieke de Goede at the University of Amsterdam. Researchers at Durham and Amsterdam investigated how data elements from the mobilities of people and money become redeployed for preemptive security.

Authored book

• Amoore, L. (2020). Cloud ethics: algorithms and the attributes of ourselves and others. Duke University Press
• Amoore, L. (2013). The Politics of Possibility: Risk and Security Beyond Probability. Duke University Press
• Amoore, L. (2002). Globalisation contested: An international political economy of work. Manchester University Press

Book review

• Dwyer, A. C., O'Grady, N., Thornton, P., Straube, T., Gilbert, E., & Amoore, L. (2021). Cloud Ethics: Algorithms and the Attributes of Ourselves and Others. The AAG Review of Books, 9(3), 36-49. https://doi.org/10.1080/2325548x.2021.1921458

Chapter in book

• Amoore, L. There is no great refusal: the ambivalent politics of resistance. In M. DeGoede (Ed.), International Policial Economy and Poststructural Politics. Palgrave
• Amoore, L. (2010). Vigilant Visualities: the Watchful Politics of the War on Terror. In F. MacDonald, R. Hughes, & K. Dodds (Eds.), Observant States: Geopolitics and Visual Culture (247-266.). Bloomsbury
• Amoore, L. (2008). Governing By Identity. In D. Lyon, & C. Bennett (Eds.), Playing the identity card: surveillance, security and ifentifcation in global perspective (42-56.). Routledge
• Amoore, L. (2007). There is no Great Refusal: the ambivalent politics of dissent. In M. De Goede (Ed.), International Political Economy and Poststructural Politics. Macmillan
• Amoore, L. (2006). Making the Modern Multinational. In C. May (Ed.), Global Corporate Power (32-54). Lynne Rienner
• Amoore, L. (2005). Invisible Subjects: Work and Workers in the Global Political Economy. In M. Davies, & M. Ryner (Eds.), The Political Economy of Unprotected Work. Palgrave
• Amoore, L., & Langley, P. (2005). Global civil society and global governmentality. In R. Germain, & M. Kerry (Eds.), The Idea of Global Civil Society (137-155). Routledge
• Amoore, L. (2005). Making the Modern Multinational. In C. May (Ed.), Global Corporate Power. Lynne Rienner
• Amoore, L., & Langley, P. (2002). Process, Project and Practice: The Politics of Globalization. In J. Abbott, & O. Worth (Eds.), Critical Perspectives on International Political Economy. Palgrave
• Amoore, L. (2002). Work Production and Social Relations: Repositioning the firm in the international political economy. In J. Harrod, & R. O'Brien (Eds.), Global Unions? Theory and Strategies of Organized Labour in the Global Political Economy (29-48). Routledge

Edited book

• Amoore, L., & Piotukh, V. (Eds.). (2015). Algorithmic Life: Calculative Devices in the Age of Big Data. Routledge
• Amoore, L., & de Goede, M. (Eds.). (2008). Risk and the War on Terror. Routledge
• Amoore, L. (Ed.). (2005). The Global Resistance Reader. Routledge

Journal Article

• Amoore, L. (online). The Line of Beauty: security’s objects and the form of data. Theory, Culture and Society,
• Amoore, L., Campolo, A., Jacobsen, B., & Rella, L. (2024). A world model: On the political logics of generative AI. Political Geography, 113, Article 103134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2024.103134
• Amoore, L. (2024). The deep border. Political Geography, 109, Article 102547. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102547
• Amoore, L. (2023). Machine learning political orders. Review of International Studies, 49(1), 20-36. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0260210522000031
• Amoore, L., Campolo, A., Jacobsen, B., & Rella, L. (2023). Machine learning, meaning making: On reading computer science texts. Big Data and Society, 10(1), https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231166887
• Thylstrup, N. B., Hansen, K. B., Flyverbom, M., & Amoore, L. (2022). Politics of data reuse in machine learning systems: Theorizing reuse entanglements. Big Data and Society, 9(2), https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517221139785
• Amoore, L., & de Goede, M. (2021). Datawars: reflections twenty years after 9/11. Critical Studies on Terrorism, 14(4), 425-429. https://doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2021.1982117
• Amoore, L. (2019). Doubt and the Algorithm: On the Partial Accounts of Machine Learning. Theory, Culture and Society, 36(6), 147-169. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276419851846
• Amoore, L. (2019). Introduction: Thinking with Algorithms: Cognition and Computation in the Work of N. Katherine Hayles. Theory, Culture and Society, 36(2), 3-16. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276418818884
• Amoore, L. (2018). Cloud Geographies: Computing, Data, Sovereignty. Progress in Human Geography, 42(1), 4-24. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132516662147
• Amoore, L., & Raley, R. (2017). Securing with Algorithms: Knowledge, Decision, Sovereignty. Security Dialogue, 48(1), 3-10. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010616680753
• Amoore, L., & Piotukh, V. (2015). Life beyond big data : governing with little analytics. Economy and Society, 44(3), 341-366. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2015.1043793
• Amoore, L. (2014). Security and the Incalculable. Security Dialogue, 45(5), 423-439. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010614539719
• Amoore, L. (2014). Security and the claim to privacy. International Political Sociology, 8(1), 108-112. https://doi.org/10.1111/ips.12044
• Amoore, L., & Hall., A. (2013). The clown at the gates of the camp: Sovereignty, resistance and the figure of the fool. Security Dialogue, 44(2), 93-110. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010613479994
• Amoore, L. (2011). Data Derivatives: On the Emergence of a Security Risk Calculus for our Times. Theory, Culture and Society, 28(6), 24-43. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276411417430
• Amoore, L., & Hall, A. (2010). Border Theatre: On the arts of security and resistance. Cultural Geographies, 17(3), 299-319. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474010368604
• Amoore, L. (2009). Lines of sight: on the visualization of unknown futures. Citizenship Studies, 13(1), 17-30. https://doi.org/10.1080/13621020802586628
• Amoore, L. (2009). Algorithmic war: everyday geographies of the war on terror. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, 41(1), 49-69. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2008.00655.x
• Amoore, L., & Hall, A. (2009). Taking people apart: digitised dissection and the body at the border. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 27(3), 444-464. https://doi.org/10.1068/d1208
• Amoore, L. (2008). Risk before justice: when the law contests its own suspension. Leiden Journal of International Law, 21(4), 847-861. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0922156508005414
• Amoore, L. (2008). Foucault against the grain. International Political Sociology, 2(3), 274-276. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-5687.2008.00049_6.x
• Amoore, L., & de Goede, M. (2008). Transactions after 9/11: the banale face of the preemptive strike. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 33(2), 173-185. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5661.2008.00291.x
• Amoore, L. (2007). Vigilant Visualities: The Watchful Politics of the War on Terror. Security Dialogue, 38(2), 215-232. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010607078526
• Amoore, L. (2006). Biometric borders: Governing mobilities in the war on terror. Political Geography, 25(3), 336-351. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2006.02.001
• Amoore, L., & De Goede, M. (2005). Governance, risk and dataveillance in the war on terror. Crime, Law and Social Change, 43, 149-173. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-005-1717-8
• Amoore, L. (2004). Risk, reward and discipline at work. Economy and Society, 33(2), 174-196. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085140410001677111
• Amoore, L., & Langley, P. (2004). Ambiguities of Global Civil Society. Review of International Studies, 30(1), 89-110. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0260210504005844
• Amoore, L. (2003). Beyond the Trade-off: Ambiguous (Un)employment and the Discourse of Flexibility. Global Society, 17(1), 81-87. https://doi.org/10.1080/0953732032000054024
• Amoore, L., & Langley, P. (2001). Experiencing Globalization: Active Teaching and Learning and Teaching in International Political Economy. International Studies Perspectives, 2(1), 15-32. https://doi.org/10.1111/1528-3577.00035
• Amoore, L., Dodgson, R., Germain, R., Gills, B., Langley, P., & Watson, I. (2000). Paths to a historicized international political economy. Review of International Political Economy, 7(1), 53-71. https://doi.org/10.1080/096922900347045
• Amoore, L. (2000). International Political Economy and the 'Contested Firm'. New Political Economy, 5(2), 183-204. https://doi.org/10.1080/713687773