Dr Calogero Giametta

I am a lecturer in Criminology and I joined the University of Leicester in 2022. I obtained an MA in Cultural Studies from Goldsmiths College (2007) and a PhD in Sociology from London Metropolitan University (2014), as such my research profile sits well in interdisciplinarity. Since 2014 I have been teaching and doing research in universities across the UK and France at Sciences Po Paris and Aix-Marseille University. In my work, I have examined how migration control operates in Europe, and I have specifically studied the impact of anti-human trafficking policies on migrant sex workers and the right of asylum for LGBTQ+ people mainly in France and in the UK. More recently, by adopting a transnational perspective, my research focus has shifted towards understanding the links between the criminalisation of sexualities and gender identity and the sociology of migration since the 1960s.  

For the past 12 years I have studied and worked on research topics related to sexuality, gender, and migration across Italy, France, and the UK. Inspired by participatory research, my approach has always been multi-sited and interdisciplinary, combining ethnographic fieldwork with gender and sexual minorities applying for asylum in Europe, migrants doing sex work in France, as well as with immigration lawyers and decision-makers.

Between 2010 and 2014 my PhD examined the experiences of LGBTQ+ refugees, and the discourses linking the politics of sexuality and the UK refugee granting process. This resulted in the publication of my book titled 'The Sexual Politics of Asylum' (Routledge 2017).

From 2014 to 2020 I was a postdoctoral research fellow within two projects led by Professor Nick Mai. The first was 'Embodied Borders: Problematizing Sexual Humanitarianism Through Experimental Filmmaking' (end Jan 2016). The second was 'Sexual Humanitarianism: Migration, Sex Work and Trafficking' funded by the European Research Council (end Jan 2020). Alongside conducting ethnography to analyse migrants’ agency and vulnerability to exploitation, it was through these two studies that I developed a keen interest and experience in ethnographic filmmaking as a social research method.

Since 2022, the year I joined the School of Criminology, I started to examine more systematically the links between historical and contemporary criminalisation and repression of LGBTQ+ identities, behaviours, and queer histories of migration and mobilities within the UK and Italy.

Book

• 2017 Giametta C. The Sexual Politics of Asylum: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in the UK Asylum System. Routledge: New York and London. 

Journal articles

• (2022) Giametta C., de Bons-Riquet D., Macioti P.G., Mai N., Bennachie C., Fehrenbacher A. E., Hoefinger H., Musto J. Racial Profiling and the Larger Impact of Covid-19 on Migrant Sex Workers in France, in Journal of Gender, Sexuality and Law.
• (2022) Giametta C., Mai N., Musto J., Macioti P.G., Hoefinger H., Fehrenbacher A. E., Bennachie C. Racialization within anti-trafficking interventions targeting migrant sex workers: Findings from the SEXHUM research project in France, in Sociological Research Online.
• (2022) Giametta C. & Le Bail H., The National and Moral Borders of the 2016 French Law on Sex Work: An Analysis of the ‘Prostitution Exit Programme’, in Critical Social Policy.
• (2021) Musto J. Fehrenbacher A. E., Hoefinger H., Macioti P.G., Bennachie C., Giametta C., Mai N. Anti-Trafficking in the Time of FOSTA/SESTA: Networked Moral Gentrification and Sexual Humanitarian Creep, in Social Sciences 10:58.
• (2021) Bennachie C., Pickering A., Angel, Mai N., Fehrenbacher A. E., Giametta C., Hoefinger H., Macioti P.G., Musto J. Unfinished Decriminalization: the Impact of Section 19 of the 2003 Prostitution Reform Act on Migrant Sex Workers’ Rights and Lives in New Zealand, in Social Sciences 10:179.
• (2021) Mai N., Macioti, P.G., Bennachie C, Fehrenbacher A. E., Giametta C., Hoefinger H., and Musto J. ‘The Racialised Bordering Politics of Sexual Humanitarianism: Migration, Sex Work and Trafficking’, in Ethnic and Racial Studies 44:9, 1607-1628.
• (2020) Giametta C. & Havkin S. Mapping Homo/Transphobia: the Neoliberal Valorization of the LGBT Protection Category in the Refugee-granting System, in ACME: An International Journal of Critical Geographies, 20:1, 99-119.
• (2020) Giametta C. & Akoro S. J. Queering social research on Sexuality, Migration and Asylum through co-authoring with participants, in Socioscapes 1, 149-160.
• (2020) Macioti P.G., Aroney E., Bennachie C., Anne E. Fehrenbacher A.E., Giametta C., Hoefinger H., Mai N., Musto J., Framing the Mother Tac: The Racialised, Sexualised and Gendered Politics of Modern Slavery in Australia, in Social Sciences 9(11), 1-19.
• (2020) Fehrenbacher A.E., Musto J., Hoefinger H, Mai N, Macioti, P.G., Giametta C., Bennachie C., ‘Transgender People and Human Trafficking: Intersectional Exclusion of Transgender Migrants and People of Color from Anti-trafficking Protection in the United States’, in Journal of Human Trafficking 6(2), 182-194.
• (2019) Hoefinger H., Musto J. Macioti, P.G., Fehrenbacher A. E., Mai N., Bennachie C., Giametta C., ‘Community‐Based Responses to Negative Health Impacts of Sexual Humanitarian Anti‐Trafficking Policies and the Criminalization of Sex Work and Migration in the US’, in Social Sciences 9 (1) 1.
• (2019) Calderaro C. & Giametta C. ‘The Problem of Prostitution’: Repressive policies in the name of migration control, public order and women’s rights, in Anti-Trafficking Review, 12, 155-171.
• (2018) Giametta C. New asylum protection categories and elusive filtering devices: the case of ‘Queer Asylum’ in France and the UK, in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 46(1), 142-157.
• (2018) Giametta C. Reorienting participation, distance and positionality: ethnographic encounters with gender and sexual minority migrants, in Sexualities, 21, 868-882.
• (2014) Giametta C. ‘Rescued’ subjects: the question of agency and religiosity for non-heteronormative asylum seekers in the UK, in Sexualities, 17, 583-599. 

Book chapters

• (2023) Le Bail H. and Giametta C. ‘Documenting the impact of the 2016 French Prostitution Law: a collaborative study prioritizing sex workers’ voices’, in M. Darley (ed.), Trafficking and Sex Work: Gender, Race and Public Order. Routledge: London.
• (2022) Le Bail H. and Giametta C. ‘L’impatto della legge francese del 2016 sulla prostituzione: Un’indagine collaborativa che da priorità alle voci delle lavoratrici del sesso’ in G. Garofalo Geymonat and G. Selmi (eds.) Prostituzione e lavoro sessuale in Italia: Oltre le semplificazioni verso i diritti. Rosenberg & Sellier: Turin.
• (2021) Giametta C. ‘The synergy between restrictive sex work and migration policies targeting sex workers in France’, in C. Rinaldi (ed.) Quaderni del Laboratorio Interdisciplinare di Ricerca su Corpi, Diritti, Conflitti. PM Edizioni: Varazze.
• (2020) Giametta C. ‘Metodologia della ricerca etnografica in contesto di attivismo causa migranti LGBT in Politiche della Vulnerabilità’, in N. Martorano and M. Prearo (eds.) Migranti LGBT: Pratiche, politiche e contesti di accoglienza. Edizioni ETS: Verona.
• (2020) Giuliani G., Giametta C., Petrovich Njegosh T. ‘Per un’analisi della memoria delle migrazioni in Europa: discorsi, (auto)rappresentazioni e propaganda’, in D. Salerno and P. Violi (eds.) Stranieri nel ricordo. Verso una memoria pubblica delle migrazioni. Il Mulino: Bologna.
• (2016) Giametta C. ‘Narrativising one’s sexuality and gender: neoliberal humanitarianism and the right of asylum’, in F. Stella et al. (eds.) Sexuality, Citizenship, and Multiple Belongings: Transnational, National, and Intersectional Perspectives. Routledge: New York.

I am happy to accept applications to supervise PhDs on the following topics:

• Queer and Feminist Criminologies
• Border and Migration Criminologies
• LGBTQ+ experiences of the criminal justice system
• Migration and Asylum 
• History of gender and sexualities 
• Criminalisation of Sex Work 
• Hate Crime 

• Victims of Crime (Year 1 core module) 
• Theories of Crime (Year 1 core module)

• Colonialism and Queer Refugees
• Migration Studies Meets Sexualities
• Sex Work, Women's Rights, and Migrants' Control
• Sex Work Exit Programmes in France
• The Impact of the Swedish Model of Sex Work in France
• What do sex workers think about the French Prostitution Act? REPORT
• Interview - The Sexual Politics of Asylum study on Estonian feminist site

Feel free to get in touch for interviews and opinion pieces on the topics listed on my research profile page.

Selected Conferences

• University of Neuchatel (26 November 2021). Organised a full-day conference titled: The Intersectionality of Queer Migration Studies.
• European Geographies of Sexualities V Conference at University of Prague (26-29 September 2019). Organised Panel: Provincialising Europe: New Directions in Research on Sexualities, Gender, and Migration.
• The 8th International Critical Geography Conference at University of Athens (19-23 April 2019). Organised Panel: Gender, Bodies, and Sexuality: Embodied Neoliberalism and New Forms of Migration Control.
• AIDS 2018 Global conference in Amsterdam RAI centre (26 July 2018). Paper Title: ‘Ending demand’ in France: The impact of the criminalisation of sex workers’ clients on sex workers’ health, security and exposure to HIV.
• Roundtable: Monstrosity and the ’refugee/migrant crises’ at Birkbeck College, London (12 June 2018). Paper Title: ‘Radical alterity’ and witchcraft: the case of Nigerian women in the anti-trafficking mechanism in France.
• Queer migration, diaspora and asylum in Europe at UCL University of London (9 December 2017). Paper Title: New Asylum Protection Categories and Elusive Filtering Devices: The Case of Queer Asylum in France and Britain.
• Observatoire Sociologique du Changement Seminar Series at Sciences Po Paris (1 December 2017). Paper Title: Queer Asylum in France and the UK.
• 'Men in Movement Conference' at University of Rome (5-6 December 2016). Paper Title: ’Fragmented’ Masculinities on the Move.
• Seminar für Kulturwissenschaft und Europäische Ethnologie at University of Basel (11-13 September 2016). Paper Title: Exploring Sexual Humanitarianism: Presentation of Research Findings.