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

He investigates the forces that bring people together and push them apart, exploring how socio-spatial transformations intersect with bordering practices defining and disrupting the limits of political community. His research revolves around three interrelated areas of inquiry: the politics of insecurity, borders and territoriality and articulations of community and solidarity. He is particularly interested in colonial histories of spatial politics and their everyday, urban and infrastructural dimensions. His  recent work has theorised the politics of neighbouring, political infrastructure and furthered a research agenda on International Urban Politics. He is currently completing a book manuscript titled The Politics of Neighbouring: Crisis, Security and the Limits of Political Community.

He is open to supervising PhD students working in his areas of research (International Political Sociology; Political Geography; Critical IR Theory; Critical Security Studies) and teaching in the case of honours and master's students (International Security; Foreign Policy).