Articles by Kandida Purnell

April 10, 2026

Contested body counts, a missing airman, and the (necro)politics of America’s war in Iran

Kandida Purnell

The recent rescue of a US airman from Iranian soil obscures a deeper truth. As contested casualty figures emerge from America’s war, Kandida Purnell argues that what we see, count, and mourn in war is never neutral. Rather, it is carefully governed through a longstanding necropolitical logic that shapes public perception and sustains conflict

The Queen's two bodies and the political power of metaphor

Kandida Purnell

Kandida Purnell explains the significance of the transition between the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the crowning of King Charles III. There is a strange (yet strategic) legal-theological history and tradition which gives the UK's monarch two ‘bodies’. In doing so, it breathes life into the still commonly deployed metaphorical ‘body politic’

Kandida Purnell

Head of Research and Professional Engagement / Associate Professor of International Relations, Richmond American University London

Kandida's research concerns the local-global politics of bodies.

She has written on the body politics of the Global War on Terror, resistance practices, mass casualty events, repatriation and commemoration processes, and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rethinking the Body in Global Politics
Routledge, 2021

When This is Over: Reflections on an Unequal Pandemic
Co-edited with Jenny Edkins, Lucy Easthope, and Amy Cortvriend. Bristol University Press – Policy Press, 2023

Kandida Purnell

@KandidaPurnell

@kandidapurnell.bsky.social

The Loop

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Articles by Kandida Purnell

Contested body counts, a missing airman, and the (necro)politics of America’s war in Iran

The Queen's two bodies and the political power of metaphor

The Loop

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Contested body counts, a missing airman, and the (necro)politics of America’s war in Iran