Hakan Sandal-Wilson is an LSE Fellow in Race and Gender at the Department of Sociology. Before joining LSE, he was a Teaching Associate in Sociology at Downing College, University of Cambridge, and an Affiliated Lecturer at the University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies. He completed his MA in Cultural Studies at Istanbul Bilgi University, and PhD at the University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies in 2021. His doctoral research explored democracy, social movements, and the intersections of ethnic, religious, gender and sexual identities in conflict-affected states and societies in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Kurdish LGBTI+ activism in Turkey.
His research interests include Gender and Sexuality, Race and Racism, Social Theory, and Postcolonial Studies. He is also interested in thinking about creative methods and methodologies in social sciences in conversation with art and literature. He is currently working on an edited volume based on a series of interdisciplinary workshops (Creaction: Creative Critical Interventions for Social Justice) he co-convened with Dr Natasha Tanna and Dr Abeyamí Ortega at UCL. He also co-convened a year-long interdisciplinary research network in 2021-22, titled ‘Global Conversations Towards Queer Social Justice’, at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities with Dr Natasha Tanna and Dr Marcin Smietana.
He previously served in Amnesty UK’s LGBTI Network as Campaigns Officer, and writes on social justice and human rights in various newspapers and journals.
Academic Publications (selected)
Sandal-Wilson, H. (2021) ‘Social Justice, Conflict, and Protest in Turkey: The Kurdish Issue and LGBTI+ Activism’ Social Research: An International Quarterly, vol. 88 no. 2.
Sandal, H. (2020) ‘Radical Queer Epistemic Network: Kurdish Diaspora, Futurity, and Sexual Politics’ Migration Letters, Vol. 17 no. 1.
Popa, B. and Sandal, H. (2019) ‘Decolonial Queer Politics and LGBT+ Activism in Romania and Turkey’ Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics.
Online Publications and Commentary (selected)
Ferguson, R. and Sandal-Wilson, H. (2021) ‘LGBTQ+ Politics and Social Justice: An Interview with Professor Roderick Ferguson about One-Dimensional Queer’, Methods in Question, 24 August 2021.
Sandal-Wilson, H. and Smietana, M. (2021) ‘Queering Authoritarianisms’: A Queer Rethinking of Social Justice and Global Politics” Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, 16 March 2021.
Green, J.N. and Sandal, H. (2020) ‘Biography, (Homo)Sexuality, and Revolutionary Politics: An Interview with Professor James N. Green’ Methods in Question, 5 August 2020.
Tanna, N. and Sandal, H. (2020) ‘The Politics of Writing in and with Crises: A Conversation with Dr Natasha Tanna’ Methods in Question, 8 June 2020.
Sandal, H. (2017) ‘Redirecting the Colonial Gaze: ‘Decolonising Queer Liberation’ or Disciplining the Kurds?’ openDemocracy, 23 September 2017.
Sandal, H. (2017) ‘Queering Turkey’s Referendum’ Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative, 10 April 2017.
Sandal, H. (2016) ‘The Turkish State of Emergency and LGBT+ Kurds’ Jadaliyya, 26 December 2016.