[Air-L] Call for Papers: Gender and Sexuality Research in Times of Crisis

[Kathryn Higgins]

Call for Papers: Gender and Sexuality Research in Times of Crisis


Symposium @ Birkbeck, University of London

Friday, 13 February 2026


The CHASE Gender and Sexuality Research Network (CHASE GSRN) is happy to announce its inaugural symposium, Gender and Sexuality Research in Times of Crisis. This symposium aims to showcase the work of early career researchers, and facilitate connections and collaborations between scholars working on gender and sexuality, broadly defined, across the arts, humanities and social sciences.


CHASE GSRN is a new interdisciplinary network established to support early career gender and sexuality scholars at a time when our work is under incredible pressure, both financial and political. Gender and Sexuality Research in Times of Crisis will create spaces of dialogue and opportunities for community-building between ECRs and established scholars in the field, who will be invited to participate as interlocutors.


We invite abstracts from postgraduate research students, postdoctoral researchers, and early career scholars working across feminist theory, gender studies, queer and trans studies and related disciplines. In particular, we invite papers that work with these literatures and frameworks as they intersect with:



  *   Far-right politics and movements
  *   Race and racial capitalism
  *   Migration, diaspora, and border regimes
  *   Disability activism and ableism
  *   Neoimperialism, militarism, and authoritarianism
  *   Popular feminism and misogyny
  *   Transphobia and trans exclusionary movements
  *   Inclusion politics and DEI
  *   Feminist and/or queer political economy
  *   Queer poetics
  *   Bodily autonomy and reproductive justice
  *   Community and care in times of crisis
  *   Queer media
  *   Queer digital cultures
  *   Local and transnational solidarities
  *   Protest and resistance
  *   Queer and feminist utopias
  *   LGBTQ+ health and wellbeing
  *   Gendered and sexual harm and violence
  *   Censorship, misinformation, disinformation, and post-truth politics
  *   Research methodologies, ethics, and obstacles


To submit, please send an abstract (max. 300 words) and a short bio (max. 100 words) to chase.gsrn at gmail.com<mailto:chase.gsrn at gmail.com> by 1 December 2025. Decisions will be shared by 15 December 2025.


A limited number of travel bursaries are available for non-CHASE funded students based outside of London.


About CHASE Gender and Sexuality Research Network


Struggles over the rights and freedoms of women, queer and transgender people are increasingly at the centre of the political zeitgeist, yet academic research that equips us to understand and navigate these struggles is increasingly politicised and systemically threatened. CHASE GSRN is a peer-to-peer support infrastructure for scholars engaged in gender and sexuality research, with a particular emphasis on building capacity across institutions and uplifting postgraduate researchers (PGRs) who are working in a national context of decreased prioritisation and institutional support for producing robust knowledge about non-normative sexualities and genders, and the inequalities attendant to those identities.


The CHASE Network recognises that political assaults on non-normative sexualities and genders are increasing alongside pressures on scholars working in so-called ‘controversial areas’. This is particularly important for gender and sexuality studies, which not only includes many researchers working on contentious topics and with marginalised communities, but also involves a high number of scholars who are women, queer, and impacted by sexual and gendered violence.


The Network is grounded in a fundamental commitment to the importance of nurturing inclusive and solidaristic communities for marginalised and minoritised scholars who are often (as is the case for LGBTQ+ scholars) facing threats to their basic rights and freedoms alongside fighting for their scholarship. Our ethos is grounded in a feminist ethics of care and a commitment to nourishing inclusive, and (where possible) intergenerational, formations of queer community.


The co-directors of CHASE GSRN are Professor Tanya Serisier (Birkbeck), Dr Zeena Feldman (King’s College London) and Dr Kat Higgins (Goldsmiths).