Staff Profile
Dr Jemima Repo
Reader in Political and Feminist Theory
- Email: jemima.repo@ncl.ac.uk
- Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 8603
- Address: Henry Daysh Building, Room 4.54
缅北禁地
NE1 7RU
Research interests
Contemporary social and political theory (especially feminist theory and biopolitics), feminism, the politics of population, political economy, Palestine, popular culture
Qualifications
- Docent, Gender Studies, University of Helsinki
- PhD, Political Science, University of Helsinki
- MSc, Political Science, University of Helsinki
- BA, Political Science, University of Helsinki
Awards
- Britain and Ireland Association for Political Thought Mid-Career Prize, 2025
- APSA Okin-Young Award in Feminist Political Theory, 2021
- ISA Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Book Prize, 2017
Previous positions
- Co-editor, (2018-2024)
- Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Helsinki
- Research Fellow, Birkbeck, University of London
- Visiting Lecturer, University of Groningen
- Visiting Reseach Fellow, Waseda University
My research is mainly in feminist political theory and biopolitics. My first book (Oxford University Press, 2015) introduced a new theoretical and methodological approach to gender. It theorisesdand historicised gender as an apparatus of power developed initially in 1950s and 1960s US psychiatry to govern life and labour. I traced how it was then taken up by feminist theory, demography, and EU public policy as a means of accessing and struggling over the control of populations. Overall the book reconsidered the emancipatory potential of the idea of 'gender' for feminist theory and politics today. The book was reviewed in , , , ,, , , Choice, , and and won the 2017 International Studies Association's Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Book Award.
I am currently working on two projects:
1) The Commodification of Feminist Activism. This project, funded by a Senior Fellowship from the , examines the politics of objects in feminist protest. Propelled by the recent mass popularisation of feminist commodities, I examine the history of objects and material production in feminism and I develop the concept of 'feminist commodity activism' to understand how commodification has shaped the recent revival of feminist activism.
2) Social Reproduction in Palestine. In addition to theorising the relationship between settler colonialism, iterations of capitalism, and social reproduction, the research examines the ways in which occupation shapes the sexual division of labour in West Bank, and its effects on women's everyday lives. I am a member of the .
Past funded projects
- A Political Sociology Approach to Parental Authority in European Family Governance (PI for UKRI/Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship, Dr Víctor Hugo Ramirez García, 2023-2025)
- The Commodification of Feminist Activism (Kone Foundation Senior Fellowship, 2020-2023)
- Checkpoints Beyond the Checkpoint: Implications for women left at home (British Academy/Leverhulme small grant, 2018-2019)
- (Academy of Finland project grant, PI Sergei Prozorov, 2015-2019)
- (Academy of Finland project grant, PI Tero Erkkilä, 2013-2017)
Current teaching
- POL1049: Power and Inequality
- POL2113: Sex, Gender and Power
- POL3046: Dissertation
- SOC8070: Global Sex, Global Race
Past teaching
- POL8058: Sex, Race and Biopolitics
PhD Supervision
Zhuoyuan Miao: Intersectional Agency in Conflict: How Marginalized Iraqi Women Reshaped Gender Roles and Societal Recovery during and after the Iraq War
Farah Qadi: Humanitarian Aid Misalignment and the Growth of Informal Markets in Gaza: Addressing Economic Settler-Colonialism Amidst War Conditions (ESRC funded)
Tom Walters: Neurodiversity and Neoliberalism. (ESRC funded)
Cecilia Frascaroli: The ethics of genital interventions: How to protect the autonomy and physical integrity of children. (ESRC funded)
Omar Hmidat: Necropolitics in Palestine: A socio-spatial analysis of practices of suspended death and grassroots resistance. (ESRC funded)
Kate Howley: Discourses of non-participation in Higher Education and the reproduction of class inequalities (ESRC funded)
Danlei Huang: Returning to Rural China: The Interplay Between Rural Power Structures and Women Returnees' Multidimensional Agency.
Stuti Prahdan: Sikkimese Women's Differentiated Citizenship: Postcoloniality, Indigeneity, and Gender in India. (ESRC funded)
Hala Shoman: Palestinian Women at the Intersection of Colonial and Patriarchal Violence: Cultural Renegotiations of Religion and Tradition in Gaza. (ESRC funded)
Hattie Cansino: The Politics of Paradise: Aesthetic Fantasies of Otherwise within Tourist Economies in Northeast Brazil (ESRC funded, completed 2021)
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Articles
- Repo J. . European Journal of Politics and Gender 2025, 8(2), 492-499.
- Shoman H, Ajour A, Abaneh S, Jabiri A, Pratt N, Repo J, Aldossari M. . Gender, Work & Organization 2025, 32(4), 1668-1675.
- Pasquetti S, Repo J, Shoman H. . International Political Sociology 2024, 18(3), 1-20.
- Repo J, Richter H. . Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory 2022, 23(2-3), 220-237.
- Griffiths M, Repo J. . Security Dialogue 2021, 52(3), 249-265.
- Griffiths M, Repo J. . Antipode 2020, 52(4), 1104-1121.
- Repo J. . Politics & Gender 2019, 15(1), 83-106.
- Repo J. . International Political Sociology 2019, 14(2), 215–232.
- Repo J. . Economy and Society 2018, 47(2), 234-256.
- Griffiths M, Repo J. . Political Geography 2018, 65, 17-25.
- Repo J. . Contemporary Political Theory 2016, 15(1), 110-118.
- Repo J, Yrjölä R. . European Journal of Cultural Studies 2015, 18(6), 741-760.
- Repo J. . Social Politics 2014, 23(2), 307-328.
- Repo J. . Feminist Theory 2014, 15(1), 73-88.
- Repo J. . Theory & Event 2013, 16(3).
- Repo J. . Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 2013, 38(3), 228-244.
- Repo J. The Governance of Fertility Through Gender Equality in the EU and Japan. Asia Europe Journal 2012, 10(2-3), 199-214.
- Repo J. 'Gender' biopolitiikkana. Naistutkimus-Kvinnoforskning 2012, 3, 51-55.
- Repo J. "Gender” biopolitiikkana. Naistutkimus-Kvinnoforskning 2012, 3, 51-55.
- Repo J, Yrjölä R. The Gender Politics of Celebrity Humanitarianism in Africa. International Feminist Journal of Politics 2011, 13(1), 44-62.
- Kantola J, Norocel C, Repo J. Gendering violence in the school shootings in Finland. European Journal of Women’s Studies 2011, 18(2), 183-197.
- Repo J. A Feminist Reading of Gender and National Memory at the Yasukuni Shrine. Japan Forum 2008, 20(2), 219-243.
- Repo J. Sukupuoli, toiseus ja väkivaltaisuuden rajat: Diskursseja naisterroristeistä ja naissotilaista Irakin sodassa. Naistutkimus-Kvinnoforskning 2007, 4, 4-15.
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Authored Book
- Repo J. . New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
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Book Chapters
- Repo J. . In: Bird, G; Tusa, G, ed. Dispositif: A Cartography. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2023, pp.351-362.
- Repo J. . In: Richter, H, ed. Biopolitical Governance: Race, Gender and Economy. London and New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2018, pp.41-57.
- Repo J. . In: Prozorov, S; Rentea, S, ed. Routledge Handbook of Biopolitics. London: Routledge, 2016, pp.157-168.
- Repo J. . In: Gibbons,MT; Coole,D; Ellis,E; Ferguson,K, ed. The Encyclopedia of Political Thought. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014, pp.3222-3226.
- Repo J. Sexuality, Race and the Biopolitics of Difference. In: Kajanus,A;Meinke,M, ed. Perspectives on Difference: Makings and Workings of Power. Helsinki: Renvall Institute Publications 30, Unigrafia, 2012.
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Reviews
- Repo J. . Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2019.
- Repo J. Jennifer Denbow: Governed Through Choice: Autonomy, Technology, and the Politics of Reproduction. Perspectives on Politics 2016, 14(3), 854-855.
- Repo J. Emanuela Lombardo and Maxime Forest (eds): The Europeanization of Gender Equality Policies: A Discursive-Sociological Approach. Gender and Language 2013, 7(2), 263-265.
- Repo J. Clare Hemmings: Why Stories Matter: The Political Grammar of Feminist Theory. International Feminist Journal of Politics 2012, 14(2), 319-321.
- Repo J. Gender and Human Rights: Jutta M. Joachim, Agenda Setting, the UN, and NGOs: Gender Violence and Reproductive Rights. Laura J. Shepherd, Gender, Violence and Security. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 2010, 38(3), 855-858.
- Repo J. Janet Hunter (ed): Japanese Women Working. Gender, Work & Organization 2009, 16(5), 645-647.
- Repo J. Sabine Frühstück: Uneasy Warriors: Gender, Memory, and Popular Culture in the Japanese Army. Armed Forces & Society 2008, 34(4), 724-726.
- Repo J. Engagements with Feminist Knowledge and Methodology in International Relations. Cooperation & Conflict 2007, 42(4), 461-465.