[1] Her recent publications examine the sex/gender and racial dynamics of global inequalities and insecurities and develop critical histories of ancient and modern state formation and Anglo-European imperialism in relation to marriage, migration, citizenship and nationalism.
"[2] Like other feminist scholars in the field of international relations, Peterson studies the workings of power, and socially-constructed ideas about sex, gender and sexualities in global politics.
Rethinking the terms of IR analyses, International Relations scholars using a feminist and/or queer lens seek to broaden the space in which critical approaches to politics are explored – amongst other features of the international system, critiques are applied to the social reproduction of identities and ideologies, heteronormativity, and structural hierarchies.
Peterson describes her research and personal interests as concerned with difference, and with crossing borders – both 'conceptually and territorially'.
[5] Peterson has been awarded a MacArthur Foundation Research and Writing Grant (1996), a Fulbright Scholarship for research in the Czech Republic (1997), an Udall Center Public Policy Fellowship (2007), and a Rockefeller Bellagio Scholarly Residency (2008).