Hakan Sandal-Wilson is Assistant Professor of Gender, Peace and Security at the Department of Gender Studies. He is a political sociologist whose teaching and research critically interrogate gender and sexuality in relation to war, peace and conflict, as well as ethnicity, religion, and migration. His ongoing research focuses on social movements in conflict-affected states and societies in the Middle East, the intersections of ethnic, religious, gender and sexual identities in these contexts, and how such movements reimagine and extend social and political horizons. He is currently preparing his first monograph, on Kurdish queer/LGBTIQ+ politics in Turkey. Hakan also researches the political engagements of feminist and queer diasporic subjects and movements, particularly in the UK. He has recently edited a special issue on ‘Kurdish Queer Studies’ for Kurdish Studies Journal, and has published in journals such as Social Research: An International Quarterly and South Atlantic Quarterly. 

Hakan is invested in exploring and developing research methods and methodologies in conversation with creative writing and literature. He is currently working on a co-edited volume (under contract with UCL Press) based on a series of politically engaged interdisciplinary workshops (‘Creaction: Creative Critical Interventions for Social Justice’) he co-convened at UCL with Natasha Tanna and Abeyamí Ortega. This collection brings together creative-critical writing with social justice research in a global frame. 

Hakan served in Amnesty UK’s LGBTI Network as Campaigns Officer between 2018-2022, and he is committed to connecting his research expertise to contemporary social and political issues. His commentaries on democracy, social justice, and conflict have appeared in various outlets, such as Jadaliyya and openDemocracy, and his work has been translated into French, Spanish, Turkish and Portuguese. 

 Hakan first joined LSE in 2022 as a Fellow at the Department of Sociology, where he taught on gender and sexuality; ‘race’, racism, and ethnicity; and social theory. Prior to joining LSE, he was at Downing College, University of Cambridge, as a Teaching Associate in Sociology; and at the University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies, as an Affiliated Lecturer. He holds an MA in Cultural Studies from Istanbul Bilgi University, and a PhD from the University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies.