Research

My research covers a range of overlapping themes further connected by my use of creative and multimodal approaches, in research and for dissemination

Cover image by Cherie Kwok, inspired by Asylum for Sale, comissioned by Shado Magazine

Migration: Asylum, LGBTQ+ experience and neoliberal norms

My co-edited book Asylum For Sale: Profit and Protest in the Migration Industry (PM Press, Sept 2020), puts into conversation scholars, activists, artists, journalists and people who have sought asylum, all engaging critically with how asylum systems internationally function under neoliberal capitalism.

My doctoral dissertation addresses the experiences of LGBT asylum seekers and NGOs in the United States, and asks: How do NGOs shape popular and political understandings of LGBT asylum seekers in the United States? Concurrently, how do their activities impact the lives of the individuals they support? I am currently revising this text for publication as a book. See here for other publications on this topic.

I work collaboratively and creatively with interlocutors, including to produced the 30-minute documentary Still Life (2018) with Women Asylum Seekers Together (WAST), contributing multimedia elements to the play ‘How I Became An Asylum Seeker’ (2010) written by Lydia Besong before directing and editing a film version of the play, leading a theatre workshop with lesbian asylum seekers leading to production of the short film We Need More Than This to Live (2011) and developing the series At Home in the Village (2018) with LGBTQ migrants in the USA.

Collaborative curation, museums and gender

As a Postdoctoral Early Career Researcher for the GlobalGRACE project, 2018-2022, I worked with colleagues internationally, using collaborative creative research methods to examine and promote social equality and wellbeing.

In this role, I curated exhibitions Exchanging Cultures of Equality and [Dis]locating Cultures of Equality co-designed an Online Course, and published widely. Major themes explored include methods towards decolonising museums and exhibitionary practices, and emphasising feminist praxis within curated spaces, including online archives.

Currently I am co-writing a book exploring the experiences of women, particularly women of colour, working in UK and South African museums – institutions coded as white/ male/ elite.

Illustration (right) commissioned by The Sociological Review Magazine to accompany my article ‘Virtual Art in a Time of Crisis’ (2021).

Art and Protest

I am interested in the material culture of protest and the uses of public/private spaces as sites of ‘resistance‘ – including in response to the Trump administration – and as sites of community-creation and political reclamation.

I’ve been engaged in LGBTQ+ justice movement building for two decades, including running alternative Pride events and challenging corporate pinkwash in Manchester, Buenos Aires, and Washington DC. My activism informs my scholarship – and vice-versa.

In 2017, I curated the exhibition Protest Matters! in Washington D.C., a satellite event of the American Anthropological Association’s annual meeting.