Alex's research focuses on criminal law and criminal justice, sexuality, drugs, feminist and queer theory
I joined Goldsmiths from Royal Holloway, University of London, where I was a Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Law. My research interests include sex and sexuality, drug use and drug policy, criminal law and criminal justice, biotechnologies and biopolitics, feminist and queer theory.
Over the past few years my work has focused on the intersections of sexuality and cultures of drug use. I have recently completed a project funded by British Academy/Leverhulme Trust looking at the 'underground' use of psychedelics to manage sexual trauma in the context of a resurgence of research into the benefits of legalising psychedelics as therapeutic medicines. Before this, I led a wide-ranging project on the past, present and future of sex on drugs, funded by the Wellcome Trust.
I have been a Visiting Scholar at the Onati International Institute for the Sociology of Law and previously co-convened the gender, sexuality and law stream of the Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA).
Teaching and supervision
I would be delighted to hear from potential MPhil/PhD candidates interested in pursuing doctoral study in any of my areas of research specialism.
I have supervised in a wide range of areas, including on the criminalisation of young people who 'sext'; HIV medicine use in Nigeria; sexual ethics, drugs and consent; pornography consumption and trangression; and the biopolitics of PrEP reluctance.
My current principal interests are sexual cultures and cultures of drug use, and the intersections between the two. I am particularly interested in the meanings we attach to sex-related drug use now and historically, intoxication, sobriety and the law, and the relationship between the effects of enhancement and repair.
I am currently working on the interaction between sexuality and psychedelics. This project examines how and why people use psychedelic drugs to manage sexual trauma (subjectively defined). Although psychedelics remain criminalised, they are increasingly hailed as effective mental health technologies. I am particularly interested in how people relate their experiences with these substances in the context of 'underground' use to therapeutic paradigms and apparatuses. The work has received funding from British Academy/Leverhulme Trust and builds on a previous Wellcome Trust-funded project on 'pharmacosexuality' (https://pharmacosexuality.wordpress.com/) (2018-2020), which examined the meanings attached historically and contemporarily to 'drugged sex', and the role illicit drugs have played in shaping contemporary sexual cultures and sexual identities.
I also maintain my longer term interests in new criminal-legal developments and processes of criminalisation in the area of sexuality and sexual representations, and have published widely on e.g. 'revenge pornography', 'extreme pornography', and 'chemsex'.
Grants and awards
2021:
The Sexual Politics of the Psychedelic Renaissance
British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Small Research Grant
Kneale, Dylan; French, Robert; Spandler, Helen; Young, Ingrid; Purcell, Carrie; Boden, Zoë; Brown, Steven D.; Callwood, Dan; Carr, Sarah; Dymock, Alex; Eastham, Rachael; Gabb, Jacqui; Henley, Josie; Jones, Charlotte; McDermott, Elizabeth; Mkhwanazi, Nolwazi; Ravenhill, James; Reavey, Paula; Scott, Rachel; Smith, Clarissa; Smith, Matthew; Thomas, James and Tingay, Karen. 2019. Conducting sexualities research: an outline of emergent issues and case studies from ten Wellcome-funded projects. Discussion Paper. Wellcome Open Research.
Professional projects
I am currently working with the Museum of Sex in New York to co-curate an upcoming exhibition on sex and psychedelics, drawing on my current and previous research. I am a member of the Drug Science Medical Psychedelics Working Group.
