Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies

Kate Birkbeck's research concerns the historical arms trade, federal and local governance, and the political economy of policing and the military.

Her first book project traces how white groups across the U.S. got guns between the Civil War and the First World War. Through case studies in Louisiana, Idaho, and Hawai‘i, it reveals how federal militia funding channeled arms to  that enforced racialized violence and foreclosed political pluralism. By bringing together gun studies, carceral studies, and the political economy of war, the project offers a new account of how paramilitarism shaped the development of U.S. state violence institutions.

As well as revisions for the book, she is beginning research on her second project. This project follows the Pinkerton National Detective Agency from 19th-century strikebreaking to their current roles surveilling Amazon warehouses and universities, situating them within the evolving infrastructure of U.S. militarism. Additionally, she has published on the British history of the National Rifle Association. 

She encourages anyone with shared interests to get in touch.