A book co-edited by Kent Law School Senior Lecturer Dr Suhraiya Jivraj, which demonstrates how sexuality, race, gender and religion intersect transnationally, is available to purchase online on a ‘pay what you can’ basis.
Decolonizing Sexualities: Transnational Perspectives, Critical Interventions (published by Counterpress) has been made available via open access as an e-book (PDF) in a bid to make the collection as fully accessible as possible. Anyone unable to afford the recommended price of £7 has the option to pay what they can. A paperback edition of the book is also available to buy at a recommended retail price of £14.
The book, whose co-editors include Sandeep Bakshi (University of Le Havre) and Silvia Posocco (Birkbeck, University of London), contributes to the critical field of queer decolonial studies and maps some of the specifically local issues as well as the common ones affecting queer/trans people of colour (qtpoc). It includes contributions from authors written in a variety of creative styles and formats such as poetry, essays, statements, manifestos, and academic mash-ups.
In a review of the collection, Sarah Keenan (Lecturer in Law, Birkbeck, University of London) said: ‘The brave and thoughtful pieces in this book span across “intellectual” and “artistic” categorisations, and together make an important contribution not only to the field of sexuality/queer studies, but also to the ongoing battle to keep such studies from racist cooptation.’
The book stems from a wider project detailed on the website for the Decolonizing Sexualities Network (DSN). The DSN was established after a successful transnational workshop held in Berlin in 2010 with a grant of more than £22,000 secured from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Research Networking Scheme. The final phase of the project, which ran from 2012 to 2014, aimed to strengthen and develop the activities of the Network and included events such as a series of online discussions, a two-day international workshop in the UK, a roundtable event and a Queer African Reader book launch.
Dr Jivraj has broad research interests in the field of law and religion, equalities, anti-discrimination and human rights law, critical race studies, gender and sexuality and Islamic family law, particularly Muslim feminisms. Her work primarily draws on critical race and religion, postcolonial and anti-racist queer theory. Her book The Religion of Law: Race, Citizenship and Children’s Belonging, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2013.