Hi and welcome.
I’m a lecturer (like an assistant professor) in government in the College of Business, Government and Law at Flinders University in Adelaide. I teach primarily in the undergraduate Bachelor of International Relations and Political Science (BIRPS) program. I joined Flinders at the beginning of 2024, and although I grew up in Australia, I had never set foot in Adelaide before.
Prior to this, I lived in New York for 12 years. I received my doctorate from the City University of New York, and taught at Hunter College while I was studying. After graduating, I worked as a lecturer (not like an assistant prof) in the writing program at Princeton University.
My research focuses on crime, violence, and other forms of in/security in the Americas. My first major research project looks at how organized crime communicates to the public, using the phenomenon of narco-messaging in Mexico as a focal case. I’ve published several articles based on this research and am working on a book project, provisionally entitled “Outlaw Infamy: Making and Marketing Cartels in Mexico.” This research has been supported by fellowships from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation and the Center for US-Mexico Studies at the University of California, San Diego.
Another project, in collaboration with Desmond Arias at Baruch College, explores political ideology and organized crime. We call this project “Illicit Ideologies.” A newer research project thinks about development and insecurity by investigating the Tren Maya, an infrastructure megaproject in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.
Philip Luke Johnson 