University of Essex

Post-Doc, Essex Business School

Other Affiliations: Grinnell College, Gender, Women's, & Sexuality Studies
University of Edinburgh, Sociology

About

My academic career has crossed disciplinary borders from the start. I went off to Grinnell College in 1993 to study Chemistry with Environmental Studies and instead found myself majoring in Psychology with a concentration in Gender & Women's Studies. Being a liberal arts institution, I also took a range of classes in fields including mathematics, Spanish, philosophy, sociology, anthropology and theatre.

I then crossed borders of nation-states to do an MSc and PhD in Sociology at the University of Edinburgh. My MSc research on Pride Scotland, asking questions about the nature of identity politics, became a book chapter entitled "Sexuality Identity Politics" in Changing Anarchism: Anarchist theory and practice in a global age. (Interestingly, this happened in part because one of the book editors was in a band I tried to book for the 'Diversity Area' I was organising during my second year with Pride Scotland. We got chatting about my research and, hey presto!)

I then spent five years doing my PhD part-time while also engaging in political activism and teaching sexual health in secondary schools. The thesis, online at sexualorientation.info/thesis/ , came back to the question of identity politics from a more personal and compassionate approach. I interviewed people in mixed sexual identity relationships to get a better idea of what sexual orientation means to people and how it is embraced, resisted, played with and subverted.

Publications from this research and my more recent autoethnographic work in education as well as writings in anarchist ethics, ecopsychology and interviews with fellow activist-scholars (most famously, Judith Butler) have struck a chord with some and I've been greatly appreciate of the warm feedback I've received.

I'm also the editor of two edited collections of writing on anarchism and sexuality (one with Richard Cleminson)
and am currently editing three further collections: Queer Autonomous Spaces (with Gavin Brown and Anja Kanngieser), Queering Ecopsychology (with Meg Barker and Martin Milton) and Revolutionary Love Letters.

Currently, I'm working on research projects at the Open University (sexuality and citizenship) and the Essex Business School (open and independent publishing). 
I live in Poole, England, where I'm training to teach Integral Yoga, writing an advice column for the web magazine Bella Caledonia, running freelance workshops, and helping nurture community resilience with our local Transition Towns.

I'm available for talks and workshops at academic, activist and other events.