Professor Fiona McConnell

Fiona McConnell is Professor of Political Geography and Tutorial Fellow at St Catherine's College. She joined the School of Geography and the Environment in 2013. Prior to this she was a lecturer in human geography at Newcastle University and has also held a Junior Research fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge. Fiona has a BA in Geography from the University of Cambridge (Fitzwilliam College) and PhD from Queen Mary, University of London.

As a political geographer Fiona's research aims to develop new areas of thinking regarding governance beyond the state, how political legitimacy is articulated by marginalised communities, and changing practices of diplomacy and mediation. Fiona was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize for Geography in 2019 and the Back Award from the Royal Geographical Society in 2022, and held a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship in 2017. She was an Associate Editor at Political Geography 2016-19, and serves on the editorial board of Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space. Fiona is a member of the RGS-IBG Research and Higher Education Committee and sits on the Board of Directors of the Tibet Justice Center and the Advisory board of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation.

i. Practices and pedagogy of diplomacy in the margins

Fiona is interested in changing geographies and practices of diplomacy, with a particular focus on the diplomatic role of stateless actors. Working with the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) she has examined the barriers faced by stateless communities in engaging with diplomacy, particularly at the UN, and the innovative strategies they use to make their voices heard. This includes the notion of 'liminal geopolitics' to think through political subjectivity, and bringing theories on performance, rhetoric, and emotional labour to bear on diplomacy. She has worked with Costas Constantinou (University of Cyprus) on the notion of a right to diplomacy, with Elaine Ho (NUS) on diaspora diplomacy, with Chih Yuan Woon (NUS) on the spatial dynamics of contemporary Chinese diplomacy,  and with Alex Manby (KCL) on digital mediation.

Related to this work is an interest in the pedagogy of diplomacy. Fiona worked with Ruth Craggs and Jonathan Harris (KCL) on a Leverhulme Trust funded project 'Training Diplomats of Postcolonial African States, 1957-1997'. The project analyses geopolitical dynamics of the training of diplomats from newly independent African states, focusing on the spaces, networks, and power relations of learning to be a diplomat. Working with Liam Saddington (Cambridge) Fiona developed 'Model UNPO' teaching resources that can be used in secondary schools, primary schools and by diaspora communities.

ii. Legal geographies & the politics of archives

Fiona has been working with Katherine Brickell (KCL) and Alex Jeffrey (Cambridge) to examine how geographers contribute to the making of law, and with Alex Manby (KCL) on the geographies of international law and claims making. She has also been researching self-determination – a geopolitically important but often misunderstood right – reimagining it beyond its Western colonial associations in international law, and drawing out the geographies of this right.

iii. Geographies of peace and mediation

Working with Nick Megoran (Newcastle) and Philippa Williams (QMUL), Fiona has been developing a research agenda around geographies of peace that focuses on contextualised and contingent practices of peace, and seeks to critically unpack the nature of everyday peaceful existence.

Extending this work to issues of mediation, Fiona was PI on the ESRC GCRF funded project Gobi Framework for sustainable infrastructure development: scaling up praxis from Mongolia to Central Asia (2018-2021), working alongside Troy Sternberg and Ariell Ahearn. This project was a collaboration with the University of Central Asia and the Independent Research Institute of Mongolia (IRIM) and it developed a framework for sustainable infrastructure development in the context of large scale mining initiatives in Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan.

Fiona runs a Final Honour School option course 'Geopolitics in the Margins', convenes and teaches on the FHS course 'Space, Place and Society' and teaches on Prelims Human Geography.

At St Catherine's College, Fiona and her colleagues are responsible for teaching students across the entire breadth of geographical topics for the Preliminary Examination and Final Honour School of Geography.

Fiona welcomes enquiries from individuals wishing to undertake doctoral research in the following broadly defined areas: contested sovereignties; practices and pedagogies of diplomacy; self-determination; legal geographies marginality and liminality.

Current Graduate Research Students

Recent Graduate Research Students

Journal articles

• Hodder, J., Manby, A. and McConnell, F. (2026) The political and legal geographies of archives: Evidence, expertise, place. Progress in Human Geography.
• Toktomushev, K. and McConnell, F. (2026) Building a “Community of Common Destiny”? Contested Geopolitical Imaginations of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Central Asia. Asian Journal of Political Science, 1-23.
• Craggs, R., Harris, J. and McConnell, F. (2025) Rethinking the late colonial state in Africa through diplomatic training. Itinerario: Journal of Imperial and Global Interactions, 49(3): 515-533.
• Craggs, R., Harris, J. and McConnell, F. (2025) Diplomatic Training and Spaces of Anticolonial Worldmaking. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography.
• Saddington, L. and McConnell, F. (2025) "You could start a new country, but you would need to discover new land”: Exploring Understandings of Statehood with Primary School Pupils in England. The Geographical Journal.
• Saddington, L. and McConnell, F. (2025) Teaching Political Geography in Primary Schools: “What is a country?” Primary Geography, 116: 6-7.
• McConnell, F., Craggs, R. and Harris, J. (2024) Tracing Diplomatic Tutelage: (Post)colonial Pedagogies and the Training of African Diplomats. International Political Sociology, 18(3): olae030.
• Saddington, L. and McConnell, F. (2024) Simulating alternative internationals: Geopolitics role-playing in UK schools. Geoforum, 151: 104011.
• Manby, A. and McConnell, F. (2024) Digital geographies of diplomacy: The uneven digital mediation of spaces and encounters at the UN Human Rights Council. Political Geography, 113: 103147. 
• Jeffrey, A., Brickell, K. and McConnell, F. (2024) Geography and legal expertise: The transgressive nature of research at the boundary of geography and law-making. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, e12696.
• Constantinou, C.M., McConnell, F., Dirik, D., Regassa, A., Loong, S. and Kuokkanen, R. (2024) Reimagining self-determination: Relational, decolonial, and intersectional perspectives. Political Geography, 103112.
• Brickell, K., Jeffrey, A., McConnell, F., Ahearn, A., Calkin, S. and Klosterkamp, S. (2024) The Secret Geographer: Thinking Aloud on Legal Engagements in Scholar-Activism. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 23(5): 402-418.
• Constantinou, C.M. and McConnell, F. (2023) On the Right to Diplomacy: Historicizing and Theorizing Delegation and Exclusion at the United Nations. International Theory, 15(1): 53-78.
• Saddington, L. and McConnell, F. (2023) Debating global governance: resources to engage A level students with geopolitics. Teaching Geography, 48(1): 14-17.
• Harris, J., Craggs, R. and McConnell, F. (2023) Understanding Diplomatic Training from the Global South: Transnational Networks and (Post)colonial Connections. Diplomatica, 5: 121-129.
• Loong, S., Manby, A. and McConnell, F. (2023) Rethinking self-determination: colonial and relational geographies in Asia. Territory, Politics, Governance, 13(7): 901-919.
• McConnell, F. and Woon, C.Y. (2023) Mapping Chinese Diplomacy: Relational Contradictions and Spatial Tensions’ Geopolitics, 28(2): 593-618.
• Constantinou, C.M., Dittmer, J., Kuus, M., McConnell, F., Opondo, S. and Pouliot, V. (2021) Thinking with Diplomacy: Within and Beyond Practice Theory’. International Political Sociology, 15(4): 559-587.
• Brickell, K., Jeffrey, A. and McConnell, F. (2021) Practicing Legal Geographies: Introduction to special section. Area, 53(4): 557-561.
• McConnell, F. (2020) Tracing modes of politics at the United Nations: spatial scripting, intimidation and subversion at the Forum on Minority Issues. Environment and Planning C, 38(6): 1017-1035.
• McConnell, F. (2020) Possible futures for Geography and Geographers and Political Geography? A reading from the Margins’ Geojournal, 87: 373-375.
• Lezak, S., Ahearn, A., McConnell, F. and Sternberg, T. (2019) Frameworks for conflict mediation in international infrastructure development: A comparative overview and critical appraisal. Journal of Cleaner Production, 239: 118099. 
• Sternberg, T., Ahearn, A. and McConnell, F. (2019) From conflict to a Community Development Agreement: A South Gobi Solution. Community Development Journal, 53(3): 533-538.
• McConnell, F. (2019) Rethinking the geographies of diplomacy. Diplomatica: A Journal of Diplomacy and Society, 1(1): 46-55.
• Ho, E. and McConnell, F. (2019) Conceptualising “diaspora diplomacy”: Territory and populations betwixt the domestic and foreign. Progress in Human Geography, 43(2): 235-255.
• McConnell, F. (2018) Performing Diplomatic Decorum: Repertoires of “Appropriate” Behavior in the Margins of International Diplomacy. International Political Sociology, 12(4): 362-381. 
• Chhotray, V. and McConnell, F. (2018) Certifications of Citizenship: the history, politics and materiality of identity documents in South Asian states and diasporas. Contemporary South Asia, 26: 2111-2126.
• McConnell, F. and Dittmer, J. (2018) Liminality and the Diplomacy of the British Overseas Territories: An Assemblage Approach. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 36(1): 139-158.
• Williams, P. James, A., McConnell, F. and Vira, B. (2017) Working at the margins? Muslim middle-class professionals in India and the limits of “labour agency”. Environment & Planning A, 49(6): 1266-1285. 
• McConnell, F., (2017) Liminal geopolitics: the subjectivity and spatiality of diplomacy at the margins. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 42(1): 139-152.
• Sternberg, T., Ahearn, A. and McConnell, F. (2017) Central Asian ‘Characteristics’ on China’s New Silk Road: The Role of Landscape and the Politics of Infrastructure. Land, 6(55): 1-16.
• McConnell, F., Kuus, M., Jeffrey, A., Crawley, A., Vaughan-Williams, N. and Smith, A. (2017) Interventions on Europe’s political futures. Political Geography, 60: 261-271.
• Powell, R., Klinke, I., Barry. A., Daley, P., Jazeel, T., Kamata, N., McConnell, F., Philipps, R. and Swain, A. (2017) Interventions in the Political geographies of “Area”. Political Geography, 57: 94-104.
• Constantinou, C., Cornago, N. and McConnell, F. (2016) Transprofessional Diplomacy. Brill Research Perspectives in Diplomacy and Foreign Policy, 1(4): 1-66.
• Wilson, A. and McConnell, F. (2015) Constructing legitimacy without legality in long-term exile: the cases of Polisario and TGiE. Geoforum, 66: 203-214.
• Jeffrey, A., McConnell, F. and Wilson, A. (2015) Understanding legitimacy: perspectives from anomalous geopolitical spaces. Geoforum, 66: 177-183.
• McConnell, F. (2013) Citizens and refugees: constructing and negotiating Tibetan political and legal identities in exile. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 103(4): 967-983.
• McConnell, F. (2013) The geopolitics of Buddhist reincarnation: contested futures of Tibetan leadership. Area, 45(2): 162-169.
• Springer, S., Chi, H., Crampton, J., McConnell, F., Cupples, J., Glynn, K., Warf, B. and Attewell, W. (2012) Leaky Geopolitics: The Ruptures and Transgressions of WikiLeaks. Geopolitics, 17(3): 681-711.
• McConnell, F., (2012) Governmentality to practice the state? constructing a Tibetan population in exile. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 30(1): 78-79. 
• McConnell, F., Moreau, T. and Dittmer, J. (2012) Mimicking state diplomacy: the legitimizing strategies of unofficial diplomacies. Geoforum, 43(4): 804-814.
• McConnell, F. (2011) A State within a State? Legal and Welfare Relations between India and the Tibetan Community and Government-in-Exile. Contemporary South Asia, 19(3): 297-313. 
• Williams, P. and McConnell, F. (2011) Critical Geographies of Peace. Antipode, 43(4): 927-931.
• McConnell, F. (2010) The Fallacy and the Promise of the Territorial Trap: Sovereign Articulations of Geopolitical Anomalies. Geopolitics, 15(4): 762-776.
• McConnell, F. (2009) De facto, Displaced, Tacit: The Sovereign Articulations of the Tibetan Government-in-exile. Political Geography, 28(6): 343-352.
• McConnell, F. (2009) Governments-in-Exile: Statehood, Statelessness and the Reconfiguration of Territory and Sovereignty. Geography Compass, 3(5), 1902-1919.

Book chapters 

• McConnell, F. and Manby, A. (2026) Geographies of international law and diplomacy. Chapter 4 in, Jeffrey, A. and Klosterkamp, S. (eds.) Research Handbook on Legal Geography. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 31-42.
• McConnell, F. and Manby, A. (2024) Digital diplomacy and non-governmental and transnational organisations. In, Bjola, C. and Manor, I. (eds.) Digital Diplomacy Handbook, Oxford University Press, pp. 383-400. ISBN: 9780192859198.
• Ho, E.L-E. and McConnell, F. (2022) Diaspora Diplomacy in Myanmar: The Role of "Multiple Worlds" in World Politics. In, Kennedy, L. (ed.) Routledge International Handbook of Diaspora Diplomacy. Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN 9781032080567.
• McConnell, F. (2022) Observing Spatial Practices. In, Badache, F., Kimber, L. and Maertens, L. (eds.) Introduction to International Organization Research Methods. Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press.
• McConnell, F. (2018) Dalai Lama. In, Martel, G. (ed.) The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Diplomacy. Wiley Blackwell.  
• McConnell, F. (2018) Transnational Activism: Impact of Populism on Minorities, Indigenous Peoples and Refugees. In, Bíró, A-M. (ed.) Populism, Memory and Minority Rights: Central and Eastern European Issues in Global Perspective. Brill, pp. 357-362.
• Megoran, N., McConnell, F. and Williams, P. (2016) Geography and Peace. In, Richmond, O., Pogodda, S. and Ramovic, J. (eds.) The Palgrave Handbook of Disciplinary and Regional Approaches to Peace, Palgrave Macmillan, pp.123-138.
• McConnell, F. and Dittmer, J. (2016) Diplomatic Culture. In, Constantinou, C., Kerr, P. and Sharp, P. (eds.) SAGE Handbook of Diplomacy, SAGE, pp. 103-113.
• Dittmer, J. and McConnell, F. (2016) Introduction: Conceptualising diplomatic cultures. In, Dittmer, J. and McConnell, F. (eds.) Diplomatic Cultures and International Politics: Translations, Spaces and Alternatives, Routledge, pp. 1-20.
• McConnell, F. (2015) Reconfiguring Diaspora Identities and Homeland Connections: The Tibetan “Lhakar” Movement. In, Mavroudi, L. and Christou, A. (eds.) Dismantling diasporas: rethinking the geographies of diasporic identity, connection and development. Ashgate, pp. 99-111.
• McConnell, F. (2014) Negotiating activist / academic roles in researching exile politics. In, Hammett, D., Twyman, C. and Graham, M. (eds.) Research and Fieldwork in Development. Routledge, pp.24-25.
• McConnell, F. (2014) Contextualising and contesting peace: geographies of Tibetan satyagraha. In, McConnell, F., Megoran, N. and Williams, P. (eds.) Geographies of Peace. I.B. Tauris, pp.131-150.
• Williams, P., Megoran, N. and McConnell, F. (2014) Introduction: geographical approaches to peace. In, McConnell, F., Megoran N. and Williams, P. (eds.) Geographies of Peace. I.B. Tauris, pp.1-25.
• Megoran, N., Williams, P. and McConnell, F. (2014) Geographies of peace, geographies for peace. In, McConnell, F., Megoran, N. and Williams, P. (eds.) Geographies of Peace, I.B. Tauris, pp. 250-260.
• McConnell, F. (2013) Exilic and diasporic nationalism: the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. In, Chatterji, J. and Washbrook, D. (eds.) Routledge Handbook of the South Asian Diaspora. Routledge, pp. 223-235.
• McConnell, F. (2013) Sovereignty. In, Dodds, K., Kuus, M. and Sharp, J. (eds.)The Ashgate Companion to Critical Geopolitics. Ashgate, pp. 109-128.

Reports and Teaching resources

• Mason, O., Barry, A., Grove, K., Massey, R., McConnell, F. and Menga, F. (2023) Critically reflecting on the PolGRG Book Prize. Guest Editorial, Political Geography, 104: 102906. 
• McConnell, F. and Saddington, L. (2022) Debating Global Governance: “Model UNPO” role play. Teaching resources for Key Stage 5, Royal Geographical Society (with Institute of British Geographers).
• McConnell, F. and Saddington, L. (2022) What is a country? Teaching resources for Key stage 3, Royal Geographical Society (with Institute of British Geographers). 
• Brickell, K., Jeffrey, A. and McConnell, F. (2022) Geographers and legal impact: scoping the field. Royal Geographical Society (with Institute of British Geographers).
• McConnell, F., Manby, A., Monje Cano, M. and Bunche R. (2020) Compromised Space and Undiplomatic Immunity. Brussels: Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization.
• McConnell, F. (2019) The challenges faced by stateless communities at the UN. Geographical Magazine, 2 December 2019.
• Liddell, I., McConnell, F. and Nodari, T. (2019) Compromised space: Bullying and Blocking at the UN Human Rights Mechanisms. Brussels: Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization.
• Liddell, I., McConnell, F. and Nodari, T. (2017) Unrepresented Diplomats Project: UN Advocacy Training Pack Brussels: Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization.

Book Reviews

• McConnell, F. (2026) Reading "The politics of feeling" through the international rights regime. Dialogues in Human Geography. 
• McConnell, F. (2025) Book review: Assembly by Design: The United Nations and Its Global Interior, Olga Touloumi. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis (2024), 312 pages. Journal of Historical Geography, 88: 201-202.
• McConnell, F. (2020) Book review: The Agendas of Tibetan Refugees: Survival Strategies of a Government-in-Exile in a world of Transnational Organizations, by Thomas Kauffmann. New York: Berghan Books. 2015. European Bulletin of Himalayan Research 54: 130-133.
• Featherstone, D., Jones, R., Davies, A., Rogers, A. and McConnell, F. (2017) Rehearsing the state: the political practices of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. Social & Cultural Geography, 19(1): 142-148.
• McConnell, F. (2015) Book review: ‘The Persistence of Nationalism: From Imagined Communities to Urban Encounters’. By Angharad Closs Stephens. London: Routledge. 2013. Cultural Geographies, 22: 550-551.
• McConnell, F. (2014) Review of Arrested Histories: Tibet, the CIA, and Memories of a Forgotten War. Carole McGranahan. Durham, NC. Duke University Press, 2010. 307 pp. American Ethnologist, 41(4): 207-209.