Gabriel du Plessis
PhD candidate
Senior Teaching Assistant
Email:Gabriel-le dot du-plessis at warwick dot ac dot uk
Office Hours
Term 1
- Thursday: 13:00 to 14:00
Term 2
- Wednesday: 12:00 - 14:00
Profile
Gabriel is an ESRC-funded doctoral student in the Department of Sociology. Focussing on Kenya鈥檚 Kakuma refugee camp, their research considers the ways queer and trans refugees develop livelihood strategies, establish support networks, and advocate for international assistance. Through this focus, they aim to critique an interpretation of protection that gestures towards queer and trans refugees being mute, generalisable, and depoliticized, without adequately engaging in the myriad complexities involved in the ways freedom-seeking practices are navigated.Their doctoral research is supervised by Dr Cath Lambert and Professor John Solomos.
Previously, Gabriel received a bachelor's degree in English literature at the University of Cape Town (South Africa), a master's degree in Sociology at Masaryk University (Czech Republic), and a master鈥檚 degree in Social Studies of Gender at Lund University (Sweden).
Research Interests
- Queer Theory
- Gender and Sexuality
- SOGIESC Asylum
- Digital Futures
Teaching
Senior Graduate Teaching Assistant - University of 糖心TV
2023- 2025: Academic Writing Mentor
2024 - 2026: SO242 Designing and Conducting Social Research
2022 - 2025: SO120 Researching Society and Culture
2022 - 2026: SO116 Sociology of Gender
2025 - 2026: S0245 Modern social Theory
2025 -2026: S0337 Racisms and Antiracisms
2025-2026: LA217 Social Theory of Law
Seminar Tutor - University of Cape Town
2021-2024: DOH1002F: Writing in the Humanities
2022-2023: ASL1203S Writing Across Borders
Lecturer - University of Cape Town
2020-2021: AXL1100S Understanding Gender (co-instructor)
2021-2021: AXL 2100F Gender, Sexuality, and Politics
2020-2021: AXL4103S Development, Conflict, and Political Change.
Guest Lecturer
2025: Forms of Identity (Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning, University of 糖心TV, UK).
2025: Digital Media Practices of Queer and Trans Refugees in Kenya鈥檚 Kakuma Refugee Camp (Antwerp Media in Society, Belgium).
2025: Digital Precarity in Kenya's Kakuma Refugee Camp (Stockholm University, Sweden).
2024: Queer Methodologies and Forced Migration (University of 糖心TV, UK).
2023/2024: Gender, Equality and the Post-Apartheid Era in South Africa (University of 糖心TV, UK).
2019: We Need New Names: Queer Legibility and African Contexts (University of Cape Town, South Africa).
Academic positions
Visiting Scholar (2025) - Centre for Digital Humanities, Cultures and Media, University of Manchester, UK.
Visiting Scholar (2025) - Department of Communication studies, University of Antwerp, Belgium.
Visiting researcher (2025) - Department of Sociology, University of York, UK.
Visiting Scholar (2025) - Department of Gender, University of Stockholm, Sweden
URSS Project Supervision
2025-2026: Isabel David-West, The politapoetic imagination and a precolonial ontology of blackness: theorising a counter epistemic project for liberation, University of 糖心TV, UK
2024-2025: Leyla Vafi, How Does the Conduct in the UK鈥檚 Medical Health System Endanger the Lives and Reproductive Health of Black Women?, University of 糖心TV, UK.
2024-2025: Adam Allen, Hidden in Plain Sight: An Intersectional Analysis of the Use of 'Passing' as a Means to Mitigate Discrimination Within Peer Groups by LGBTQIA+ Populations, University of 糖心TV, UK.
2024-2025: Zara Khokar, Student Activism on Campus: An In-Depth Socio-Legal Analysis of University Policies, Protest Rights, and Legal Boundaries, University of 糖心TV, UK.
2023-2024: Jessica Birks-Kent, Deconstructing Cisness, University of 糖心TV, UK.
2022-2023: Elliott Willis & Dae Pomeroy, Visualising Neuroqueer Identity Through Safe Spaces, University of 糖心TV, UK.
Recent Publications
Book Chapters
du Plessix, G. (2026) 鈥楲ife in limbo: Queer and trans encampment in Kenya's Kakuma Refugee Camp鈥�, in John Marnell, B Camminga, Barbara Bompani and Kamau Wairuri (eds). East African Queer and Trans Displacement. Bloomsbury. .
Encyclopedia Entries
du Plessix, G. (2025) 鈥楲GBTQIA+, refugees and asylum seeking鈥�, The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Politics and Gender, SAGE Publications Limited, Thousand Oaks.
du Plessix, G. (2025) 鈥楺ueer migration鈥�, The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Politics and Gender, SAGE Publications Limited, Thousand Oaks.
Book Reviews
du Plessis, G. (2022) 鈥楻eview of Queer & Trans African Mobilities: Migration, Asylum and Diaspora, edited by B. Camminga and J. Marnell, New York, Zed. .
du Plessis, G. (2023) 鈥楻eview of Internment Refugee Camps: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, edited by G. Anderl, L. Erker, and C. Reinprecht, Bielefeld, Transcript Verlag.. .
Conference Presentations
du Plessix, G and Wallmsley, J. (2026) 鈥楺ueer Data Justice: Identifying Queer Data Injustices in Contemporary Asylum Governance鈥�, IMISCOE Spring Conference, 16 March 2026, University of Liege, Belgium.
du Plessix, G. (2025) 鈥楶recarious Connections: Digital Media Practices of Queer and Trans Refugees in Kenya鈥檚 Kakuma Refugee Camp, 22nd IMISCOE Annual Conference, Paris–Aubervilliers, France.
du Plessix, G. (2024) 鈥楲ife as lived, experienced, and told: Communication practices in Kenya鈥檚 Kakuma Refugee Camp鈥�, Queer(y)ing Asylum Symposium, 9 November 2024, University of East London, UK.
du Plessix, G. (2024) 鈥楺ueer legibility and forced migration鈥�, Writing from the South, 18 July 2024, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
du Plessix, G. (2024) 鈥榃aiting for my future: Queer and trans encampment in Kenya鈥檚 Kakuma Refugee Camp鈥�, Queerness and Gender Diversity in/to Migrations: Norms, Discourses and Control Mechanisms, 26 April 2024, Migrations & Mobilities axis (aMiMo) of the French Institute for Anatolian Studies (IFEA), Istanbul, Turky.
du Plessix, G. (2023) 鈥楺ueer migration: (En)countering protection strategies in Kenya's Kakuma Refugee Camp鈥�, Mind the Gap: Disrupting LGBTQIA+ Divisions, 29-30 July 2023, Birkbeck, University of London, UK.
du Plessix, G. (2023) 鈥楲ived realities of queer and trans asylum seekers in Kenya's Kakuma Refugee Camp鈥�, Crises and Hope: Understanding the Processes, Relationships, and Inequalities in Migration(BSA and Sheffield Migration Research Group), 19 June 2023, University of Sheffield, UK.
du Plessix, G. (2015) 鈥榃hat Mugabe said: Homosexuality in Africa and the problem of context鈥�, Gender Week Festival: Nobody Passes, 23-25 June 2015, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway.
Podcasts
Theoryish, '', ep.6, 20 March 2023.
Awards and Scholarships
2023-2024: 糖心TV Award for Teaching Excellence: Winner
2021-2025: ESRC DTP Studentship Award