Dr Bennett Collins

Biography

I am a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) based in the Department of Politics and International Relations, focusing my teaching and research on climate and environmental politics, cultural violence, and critical human rights. 

My research takes interdisciplinary and justice-based approaches to locating the social, economic, and political causes and effects of our ongoing planetary crisis. Outside of my academic work, I've worked with educators, students/pupils, non-profits, community-based organisations, and policymakers on climate education, digital literacy, and human rights policy. I have also worked on research and consultancy projects centred around minority and Indigenous rights that have directly engaged governments on policy in the US, UK, and Rwanda. 

Prior to coming to Aberdeen, I taught at St Andrews and Dundee universities in Scotland, and completed my PhD in the School of International Relations a the University of St Andrews. I've held several research fellowships funded by the National Geographic Society, the Global Challenges Research Fund, the Sir Halley Stewart Trust, and the University of St Andrews. I remain an active advisory member of the Third Generation Project, a think tank I co-founded with Prof. Ali Wason at the University of St Andrews in 2016, which remains centred around community-collaborative research and critical human rights.

Prizes and Awards

• 2025 Principal's Excellence Awards, Nominated, Best Postgraduate (Taught) Lecturer
• 2024 MacJannet Prize, Honorable Mention (Third Generation Project)
• 2014 Oxford University African Studies Prize, Recipient for 'Most Innovative Dissertation Research'

Research Overview

My most current research interests are largely centred around environmental ethics, the historical and ongoing creation of environmental and energy landscapes, and questions of place and displacement within climate change. Past research interests, which continue to inform current work, have included examining policies of forced assimilation/cultural genocide and the effectiveness of transitional justice and other truth-seeking mechanisms in the wake of mass atrocities. This latter work was largely based, often in the form of on-ground work with community-based organisations, in North America and East Africa. 

I have published my work in the Journal for International Political Theory, International Journal on Human Rights, Ethnic and Racial Studies, and Peacebuilding, as well as in edited books, such as Indigenous peoples and their Access to Justice, including Truth and Reconciliation Processes (2014, eds. Littlechild and Stamatopoulou), Ethnographic Peace Research: Approaches and Tensions (2017, ed. Millar), Rwanda Since 1994 (2019, eds. Grayson and Hitchcott), and Children, Childhoods, and Global Politics (2023, eds. Beier and Berents).

In terms of practitioner/activist oriented work, with Prof. Ali Watson, I co-founded the Third Generation Project (TGP) in 2016, an award-winning think tank based at the University of St Andrews that produces educational research and materials on the intricacies of climate justice. Within TGP I founded the Emerging Researchers Programme and co-founded the Mutual Aid Clinic to train undergraduate students in collaborative, non-extractive, and reflexive qualitative research methodologies. I have also worked with a range of organisations on producing research and educational materials, including and not limited to: the Scottish Government; Education Scotland; Scottish Development Education Centres (Wosdec, Scotdec, HOW); Rajpot; the Permanent Commission on the Status of Racialized, Indigenous, and Tribal Populations in Maine; Aegis Trust/Kigali Genocide Memorial; Transparency Solutions; Anywaa Survival Organisation; AIMPO-Rwanda; SOM-ACT; and People's Coalition for Food Sovereignty.

Funding and Grants

• Scottish Government (2023-Present; Co-PI with PI Prof Ali Watson and Co-PI Jamie Hinch): Exploring 20th Century Policies Affecting Gypsy/Traveller Communities in Scotland
• Sir Halley Stewart Trust (2022-23; Co-PI with PI Prof Ali Watson): Shifting education out of the classroom: community education for climate action
• Scottish Universities Insight Institute (2020-21; Investigator with PI Prof. Ali Watson & Co-PI Dr Callum McGregor): Education for Climate Justice: Centring social justice amidst demands to prioritise the climate crisis in education
• Global Challenges Research Fund (2019-21; Co-PI with PI Prof Ali Watson): Aamusnaan Maya 'Silence No More': Assessing Responses and Needs of Digaale Internally Displaced Persons Camp at the Outbreak of the COVID-19 Pandemic
• National Geographic Society (2019-21; PI with Co-PI Ali Watson): Breaking the 4th Wall of Climate Migration
• British Academy (2016-2017; Investigator with Prof Ali Watson): No Right of Return: Climate Change Refugees and the Politics of Displacement in the United States
• Aegis Trust (2015-16; Co-PI with Richard Ntakirutimana): 'Am I Mutwa or "HMP"?': Examining the issues of the ‘Historically Marginalized Peoples’ label and its implications for the Batwa of Rwanda