Dr Jemima Repo

Lecturer in the Politics of Gender

Email: jemima.repo@ncl.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 3926
Address: Politics Building
Newcastle University
40-42 Great North Road
Newcastle Upon Tyne
NE1 7RU

Background

Research interests

Feminist political theory, biopolitics, theories of sex, gender, race and class, 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

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 Hypatia, Journal of Gender Studies, Feminist Theory, Perspectives on Politics, 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 the West Bank.

I am a co-editor of Contemporary Political Theory.

Ongoing funded projects

Checkpoints Beyond the Checkpoint: Implications for women left at home (British Academy 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

I am on research leave from September 2016 to August 2018.

2018-2019 academic year:

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

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. In Press.
Repo J. Governing Juridical Sex: Gender Recognition and the Biopolitics of Trans Sterilisation in Finland. Politics & Gender 2018. In Press.
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.