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Cole Matthews

Lead supervisor:
Prof Daniel Newman

Other supervisor(s):

  • Prof Sharon Thompson

Start date: October 2023

Award: General

Subject Pathway:
Criminology and Law

Thematic Cluster:
Rights and Governance Cluster

Legal constructions of trans subjectivity across empires: a comparative and connected study of British India and French Algeria

My research seeks to understand how the interaction of legal frameworks and wider cultural attitudes constructed disciplining discourses of gender and sexuality under colonial settings. It links the policing of bodies in the British Penal Codes to the French Civil Codes, aiming to uncover structurally similar patterns of establishing hegemony across empires in the 19th and 20th centuries, along with their reoccurring contemporary legacies.

Using an interdisciplinary approach, this work engages with socio-legal theory, histories of colonial law, gender and sexuality and decolonial/postcolonial studies.