Background

Research interests

Feminist theory, biopolitics, contemporary social and political theory, the politics of popuation, political economy, European far right politics, violence, 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

Previous positions

• Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Helsinki
• Research Fellow, Birkbeck, University of London
• Visiting Lecturer, University of Groningen
• Visiting Reseach Fellow, Waseda University

Roles and Responsibilities

• Degree Programme Director for Politics and Economics (LL21)
• Deputy Politics Degree Programme Director
• Combined Honours Subject Liaison for Politics (Y001)
• Co-convenor, Gender and Politics Research Group
• Co-editor, Contemporary Political Theory

Research

My research is mainly located in the intersection of feminist political theory and biopolitics. My book The Biopolitics of Gender (Oxford University Press, 2015) introduces a new theoretical and methodological approach to gender. It theorises and historicises gender as an apparatus of power developed initially in 1950s and 1960s US psychiatry to govern life and labour. I trace 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 reconsiders the emancipatory potential of the idea of 'gender' for feminist theory and politics today. The book has been reviewed in Gender & Society, Hypatia, Journal of Gender Studies, Feminist Theory, Perspectives on Politics, Political Quarterly, Environment and Planning D: Society & Space, Choice, Times Higher Education and LSE Review of Books and won the 2017 International Studies Association's Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Book Award.

I am currently working on two projects, one on the commodification of feminist activism and another on the biopolitics of checkpoints in Palestine.

I am a co-editor of Contemporary Political Theory and the co-convenor of the Gender and Politics Research Group at Newcastle University,

Ongoing funded projects

• The Commodification of Feminist Activism (Kone Foundation, 2019-2022)
• Checkpoints Beyond the Checkpoint: Implications for women left at home (British Academy/Leverhulme small grant, 2018-2019)
• Biopolitics and Democracy (Academy of Finland project grant, 2015-2019)

Past funded projects

• Politics and Numbers: Policy Instruments and Global Governance (Academy of Finland project grant, 2013-2017)

Teaching

2018-2019 Academic Year

• POL2113: Sex, Gender and Power
• POL8058: Sex, Race and Biopolitics

Feedback, guidance and consultation hours

PhD Supervision

Cai Weaver (University of Helsinki): The Russian Conservative Turn: Biopolitics and Sexuality

Hattie Cansino: Transnational Imaginaries and Telenovelas: Challenging Subjectivity Production in North-East Brazil

Leigh Ingham: Surfing the Fourth Wave: An analysis of the distinctive participatory repertoires demonstrated by young fourth wave feminists

Publications

• Repo J. Gary Becker’s economics of population: reproduction and neoliberal biopolitics. Economy and Society 2018, 47(2), 234-256.
• Repo J. Governing Juridical Sex: Gender Recognition and the Biopolitics of Trans Sterilisation in Finland. Politics & Gender 2019, 15(1), 83-106.
• Griffiths M, Repo J. Biopolitics and Checkpoint 300 in Occupied Palestine: Bodies, Affect, Discipline. Political Geography 2018, 65, 17-25.
• Repo J. The Life Function: The Biopolitics of Sexuality and Race Revisited. In: Richter, H, ed. Biopolitical Governance: Race, Gender and Economy. London and New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2018, pp.41-57.
• Repo J. Thanatopolitics or biopolitics? Diagnosing the racial and sexual politics of the European far-right [Bodies in politics]. Contemporary Political Theory 2016, 15(1), 110-118.
• Repo J. Gender Equality as Bioeconomic Governmentality in a Neoliberal EU. In: Prozorov, S; Rentea, S, ed. Routledge Handbook of Biopolitics. London: Routledge, 2016, pp.157-168.
• Repo J. The Biopolitics of Gender. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
• Repo J. Gender Equality as Biopolitical Governmentality in a Neoliberal European Union. Social Politics 2014, 23(2), 307-328.
• Repo J, Yrjölä R. 'We’re All Princesses Now': Sex, Class and Neoliberal Governmentality in the Rise of Middle-Class Monarchy. European Journal of Cultural Studies 2015, 18(6), 741-760.
• Repo J. Herculine Barbin and the Omission of Biopolitics from Judith Butler’s Gender Genealogy. Feminist Theory 2014, 15(1), 73-88.
• Repo J. Reproduction. 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. The Biopolitical Birth of Gender: Social Control, Hermaphroditism, and the New Sexual Apparatus. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 2013, 38(3), 228-244.
• Repo J. The Life Function: The Biopolitics of Sexuality and Race Revisited. Theory & Event 2013, 16(3).
• 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.
• 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, Yrjölä R. The Gender Politics of Celebrity Humanitarianism in Africa. International Feminist Journal of Politics 2011, 13(1), 44-62.
• 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.
• 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.