Dr Kevin O’Sullivan

My main research and teaching interests are in international history, especially the areas of empire, globalisation, development, and NGOs. I am particularly interested in how our ideas of the 'West' changed in an era of decolonisation, and how those themes were experienced from its peripheries – in Ireland, Canada and Northern Europe. Those questions are reflected in my teaching at undergraduate (modules on decolonisation, aid, and Ireland in a global context) and postgraduate (NGOs and the making of the twentieth century) levels.

They also find echoes in my research career to date. My first book, Ireland, Africa and the End of Empire: Small State Identity in the Cold War was published in 2012 by Manchester University Press, and I have written on Irish and international history in the Journal of Genocide Research, Irish Historical Studies, Policy & Practice, Irish Studies in International Affairs, and several edited collections. I am currently working on a new book, provisionally titled 'The NGO Moment: the Globalisation of Humanitarianism, 1968-85', that examines the social, ideological, and cultural bases of humanitarianism in the West, including case studies of British, Canadian and Irish NGOs. As part of that project, I organise an international research network titled Non-state humanitarianism: From colonialism to human rights that brings history and historians into conversation with the practical world of humanitarian aid. The network, funded initially by a British Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) research networking grant, has convened four workshops to date: three hosted by its key academic partners (NUI Galway, University of Birmingham, ZZF Potsdam) and a fourth by one of its NGO collaborators, Save the Children.

In addition to that AHRC grant, my research to date has won funding from the Irish Research Council (New Foundations grant, two postdoctoral fellowships, and a postgraduate studentship), NUI Galway (Millennium Fund), and Trinity College Dublin (postgraduate studentship). I am also currently an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham, where I spent a year as a Marie Curie Fellow (2011-12), and have previously held a Visiting Research Fellowship at Carleton University, Ottawa (2014). Before arriving in Galway in 2012, I was an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at UCD School of History and Archives (2009-2011) and completed my PhD at Trinity College Dublin in 2008. In 2011 I was seconded to Irish Aid and the Higher Education Authority to work on their joint 'Programme of Strategic Co-operation Between Irish Aid and Higher Education and Research Institutes'.

Outside the university context, I am also involved in a number of collaborative activities. In 2012, my interest in the intersections between Irish and international history led me to become a founding member of 'Transnational Ireland', an international research network concerned with exploring the history of modern Ireland using a transnational approach. In the same year I became a committee member of the Voluntary Action History Society  and in 2014 I joined the committee of the Irish Association of Professional Historians. Continuing my interest in public engagement, I am also co-convenor of the cross-sectoral Development Studies Association Ireland Civil Society Study Group; have been involved in academic/practitioner conversations organised by the AHRC, Save the Children, and others; am a member of the International Reference Group for HumanitarianHistory.org; and have appeared on radio on several occasions for Newstalk and RTÉ.