Ari's research and teaching interests cross the disciplines of International Relations and Political Geography. He has specific expertise on critical approaches to security, international relations and political geography. He is currently co-convener of the Australian Critical Border Studies Network and the Political Geography Study Group of the Institute of Australian Geographers.

His research focuses on border politics. He studies how notions of territory and political space are understood, enacted and experienced through bordering practices and how people are brought together and pushed apart in the process. He is particularly interested in the colonial and postcolonial histories of borders and their everyday, urban and infrastructural dimensions. Prior to joining UWA he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at ANU working on "The Cartography of Peace" project and continues to conduct research on how bordering and mapping practices shape peacekeeping operations.

His recent work has theorised colonial afterlives, the politics of neighbouring, political infrastructure and furthered a research agenda on International Urban Politics. He is currently completing a book manuscript titled The Spatial Limits of Political Community: Bordering the Neighbour in Spain (Bristol University Press).

He is open to supervising PhD students working in his areas of research (Critical Border Studies; International Political Sociology; Critical IR Theory; Political Geography; Critical Security Studies).