Race, gender and culture research cluster
Race and gender are at the core of research in the Birkbeck Law School. Our early work was focused on the ways in which legal doctrine constructs subjects as sexed, gendered and racialised. More recently, we have focused on the ways in which legal institutions (police, prisons, detention services, courts etc.) form subjects as sexed, racialised, gendered and how these formations result to inequalities and a failure of justice.
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Research specialisms
- We are actively engaged in research on:
- family, kinship and sexuality
- the sexuality of the judiciary
- queer theory and prisons
- law and the body
- gender formation and violence
- race and property
- race and migration.
- We are actively engaged in research on:
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Relevant research centres
- The research centre most closely associated with this cluster is the Centre for Research on Race and Law, established in 2017. The centre adds to our theoretical approaches to gender and sexuality, with its activist-focused events. Some of our members are on the steering committee of the Birkbeck Gender and Sexuality (BiGS). BiGS was established in 2007 and is an internationally recognised forum for innovative interdisciplinary collaboration and exchange in gender and sexuality studies. It brings together scholars working in law, the arts and humanities and the social sciences and encourages dialogue with practitioners in the creative industries as well as with non-academic constituencies.
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Members
- Bina Bhardwa
- Oscar Guardiola-Rivera (law, Latin America and race)
- Sarah Keenan (property and race)
- Sarah Lamble (queer theory and prisons)
- Elena Loizidou (law and the body)
- Megan McElhone
- Susy Menis (law and masculinity, prison history and gender)
- Daniel Monk (children, family, sexuality)
- Leslie Moran (judicial sexuality)
- Tanya Serisier (critical feminism, sexual and gendered violence)
- Emily Setty
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Postgraduate Research Student members
- Soumyajit Basu (feminist perspectives on intellectual property law, gender, culture and property)
- James Godfrey
- Becka Hudson (racism in criminal justice and health)
- Luiz Valle, Jr.
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Current and recent externally funded research projects
- From love to justice: the role of family in death in custody cases (Nadine El-Enany)
- Making land liquid: the temporality of title registration (Sarah Keenan)