Gabriel du Plessis
IAS Early Career Fellow
Associate Tutor
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Profile
Gabriel is an IAS Early Career Research Fellow and Associate Tutor in the Department of Sociology. Their ESRC-funded doctoral research traced the freedom-seeking practices of queer and trans refugees within the uneven spatiotemporal conditionsLink opens in a new window of encampment in Kakuma, Kenya. Building on this work, their collaborative research traces how LGBT Ugandan activists living in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, the United States, Canada and Kenya sustain and reconfigure political action under differing conditions of asylum and exile. The other draws on a queer data justice framework to examine how digital infrastructures, from encrypted messaging to biometric identification systems, shape queer and trans asylum claimants’ access to protection. Their doctoral research was supervised by Dr Cath Lambert and Professor John Solomos.
Previously, Gabriel received a bachelor's degree in English literature at the University of Cape Town (South Africa), a master's degree in Sociology at Masaryk University (Czech Republic), and a master’s degree in Social Studies of Gender at Lund University (Sweden).
Research Interests
- Queer Theory
- Gender and Sexuality
- SOGIESC Asylum
- Digital Futures
- Digital Asylum and Protection Infrastructures
- Student–AI Relations in Higher Education
Teaching
Module Convening
2026–2027: Module Convenor, SO360 State Crime, Human Rights and Global Wrongs
2026–2027: Co-convenor, SO120 Researching Society and Culture
Guest Lecturer
2025: Forms of Identity (Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning, University of Warwick, UK).
2025: Digital Media Practices of Queer and Trans Refugees in Kenya’s Kakuma Refugee Camp (Antwerp Media in Society, Belgium).
2025: Digital Precarity in Kenya's Kakuma Refugee Camp (Stockholm University, Sweden).
2024: Queer Methodologies and Forced Migration (University of Warwick, UK).
2023/2024: Gender, Equality and the Post-Apartheid Era in South Africa (University of Warwick, UK).
Academic positions
Visiting Scholar (2025) - Centre for Digital Humanities, Cultures and Media, University of Manchester, UK.
Visiting Scholar (2025) - Department of Communication studies, University of Antwerp, Belgium.
Visiting researcher (2025) - Department of Sociology, University of York, UK.
Visiting Researcher (2025) - Department of Gender, University of Stockholm, Sweden
URSS Project Supervision
2025-2026: Isabel David-West, The politapoetic imagination and a precolonial ontology of blackness: theorising a counter epistemic project for liberation, University of Warwick, UK
2025-2026: Sia Tutu, Do postracial societies exist and, if so, is South Africa an example of this?, University of Warwick, UK.
2024-2025: Leyla Vafi, How Does the Conduct in the UK’s Medical Health System Endanger the Lives and Reproductive Health of Black Women?, University of Warwick, UK.
2024-2025: Adam Allen, Hidden in Plain Sight: An Intersectional Analysis of the Use of 'Passing' as a Means to Mitigate Discrimination Within Peer Groups by LGBTQIA+ Populations, University of Warwick, UK.
Recent Publications
Journal Articles (Peer-Reviewed)
du Plessix, G. and Panossian, V. (2026) ‘The Man Who Sold His Skin: Negotiating Refugeeness through Materiality’, Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, 19(2).
Book Chapters
du Plessix, G. (2026) ‘Life in limbo: Queer and trans encampment in Kenya's Kakuma Refugee Camp’, in John Marnell, B Camminga, Barbara Bompani and Kamau Wairuri (eds). East African Queer and Trans Displacement. Bloomsbury. Available here.
Encyclopedia Entries
du Plessix, G. (2025) ‘LGBTQIA+, refugees and asylum seeking’, The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Politics and Gender, SAGE Publications Limited, Thousand Oaks.
du Plessix, G. (2025) ‘Queer migration’, The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Politics and Gender, SAGE Publications Limited, Thousand Oaks.
Conference Presentations
du Plessix, G and Wallmsley, J. (2026) ‘Queer Data Justice: Identifying Queer Data Injustices in Contemporary Asylum Governance’, IMISCOE Spring Conference, 16 March 2026, University of Liege, Belgium.
du Plessix, G. (2025) ‘Precarious Connections: Digital Media Practices of Queer and Trans Refugees in Kenya’s Kakuma Refugee Camp, 22nd IMISCOE Annual Conference, Paris–Aubervilliers, France.
du Plessix, G. (2024) ‘Life as lived, experienced, and told: Communication practices in Kenya’s Kakuma Refugee Camp’, Queer(y)ing Asylum Symposium, 9 November 2024, University of East London, UK.
Panels
Marnell, J., Camminga, B., Nyanzi, S., Mwaura, M., du Plessix, G. & Scuzzarello, S. (2026) ‘Displaced from, displaced within: Queer and trans lives across East Africa’, 10 September 2026, GenSeM Migration DialogueLink opens in a new window, online
du Plessix, G., Abbey, M. & Scuzzarello, S. (2024) ‘Queer migrations: Perspectives, practices and possibilities’, 24 April 2024, BREM & SeXQueer Research Network, University of Warwick, UK.
Podcasts
Theoryish, 'Jack Halberstam: Queer Art of Failure', ep.6, 20 March 2023.
Memberships
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Queer Security Network
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IMISCOE
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British Sociological Association
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Czech Cultural Sociology and Migration Network
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Antwerp Media in Society Network
Awards and Scholarships
2023-2024: Warwick Award for Teaching Excellence: Winner
2021-2025: ESRC DTP Studentship Award