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Gender, Sexuality and Inequalities

We have a distinguished history of groundbreaking international and interdisciplinary research on gender, sexuality and inequality.

Our research expertise spans a range of areas in relation to gender, sexuality and inequalities more broadly. This includes sexual citizenship and intimacy, human rights and the law, queer theory, feminisms and care. 

We continue to reshape the field through empirically robust and theoretically driven research that frequently draws on the co-production of knowledge. Our work engages with the sociological imagination in topics that include class, ethnicity, family, embodiment and everyday life practices across a range of international contexts.

The department is also home to the world-renowned Centre for Women's Studies which boasts collaborations with colleagues in China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Sweden, Finland and South Africa. 

People

Staff
  • Dr Emily Nicholls
    Gender, femininities, identities particularly in relation to drinking and sobriety.
  • Dr Clare Jackson
    Conversation analysis applied to gender, childbirth.

  • Dr Anna Strhan
    Relations between religion, secularism, gender and sexuality.

  • Dr Ayshka Sene
    Gender in wartime, gender and ethnicity, gendered spaces in the inner city.

  • Dr Rachel Alsop
    Gender theories and social justice, contemporary developments in feminist theory; issues of body image (particularly in relation to aesthetic surgery); gender based violence and refugee and migrant women; and girls' rights.

  • Dr Clare Bielby
    Terrorism and gender; violence, representation and gender; violence, subjectivity and affect/emotion; the field of perpetrator studies; history of feminisms; queer studies and feminist queer theory; subjectivity and narratives of the self; gender, sexuality and representation.

  • Dr Boriana Alexandrova
    Contemporary women's writing and performance, 20th - 21st century literary multilingualism and translation, including Irish and European modernism, global and postcolonial studies, and cross-disciplinary theories of embodiment.

  • Dr Metin Koca
    Visibility and Social Control; Democratization and the Politics of Recognition; the Politics of Religion, Non-Religion, and Culture.

  • Dr Silvia Falcetta
    Sexual orientation equality, discrimination, human rights, feminist and queer legal theory, social and legal control.

  • Dr Amanda Rees
    Feminism, futures, sciences, animals, science fictions.

  • Dr Siân Beynon-Jones
    • Feminism, time/temporalities, STS, pregnancy, reproductive healthcare, law, medical sociology.
  • Dr Mary Laing
    Non-heteronormative and queer sex work, sex work and health, sex work and technologies, academic experiences of researching the sex industry, safety and violence, collaborative methods and human rights.
  • Dr Asha Abeyasekera
    Marriage, family, kinship, home and homemaking and everyday practices of intimacy and care. Gendered subjectivities and ethical self-making. Cross-cultural expressions of emotions and wellbeing, including shame and honour. Intersections between state and domestic violence.
  • Dr Edmund Coleman-Fountain
    Disability, gender and sexuality, social care, creative and participatory methods, Queer Theory, identity.
Research students
  • Lizzie Merrill
    Gender, feminist art histories and the medical humanities

  • Siham Akaka
    Feminisms / Women's experiences with Hijab

  • Amy Holmes
    Gender, community / marginalisation, urban studies

  • Sanna Eriksson
    Motherhood, gender and feminisms in China

  • Siyu Chen
    Media and gender: the gendered experiences of Chinese journalists and their influence on sexual assault news reporting

  • Diana/Dee Adu-Gyimah
    Gender & Activism: How female students are fighting against sexual violence on university campuses in Ghana

  • Alankrita Anand
    Gender and health, reproductive justice, feminist agency, feminist research methods

  • Jade Gilbourne
    Digital relationships, gender and sexuality, sex and identity

  • Catherine Stinton
    Gender, racism, the far right, whiteness studies

  • Mia Westrap
    Postfeminism, neoliberalism, intuitive eating

Project spotlights

Rewriting the rules or playing the game?

Sex, gender and health

Racism in Higher Education

Research degrees
Push the boundaries of knowledge in our supportive and stimulating environment.
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