PhD Mid-way Seminar: Sophia Zisakou

Feeling queer, feeling real

Affective economies of truth in queer asylum politics

Sophia Zisakou's research focuses on credibility assessment in queer asylum claims in Greece. To be granted asylum, queer asylum seekers need to “prove” their sexual identity and be considered and recognized as “credibly queer”. Through empirical fieldwork in Greece, her doctoral research seeks to study which main practices are used in credibility assessment and how queer is defined and regulated for the needs of the asylum procedure. Drawing on notions of homonormativity, homonationalism and sexual citizenship, as defined in neoliberal democracies, she aims to analyze the legal process of asylum through the lens of postcolonial queer and feminist theory and put into question the regime of sexual truth that dominates the asylum procedure.

Sophia holds an LLB from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, an LLM in Public International Law from National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and an MA in Gender Studies from Panteion University for Social and Political Sciences. Between 2016 and 2022 she worked as a refugee lawyer in Greece, specialised in LGBTIQ+ and unaccompanied minors’ asylum cases.