Dr Jason Lim
Temporary Lecturer

Location: Room 221
email: j.lim@qmul.ac.uk
Phone: 020 7882 2749
Fax: 020 7882 7479

 

Teaching
GEG4103 Geographical Perspectives (convenor)
GEG4106 Reinventing Britain
GEG6119 Geographies of Tourism and Travel (convenor)
GEG7106 Culture, Space and Power (convenor)
GEG7120 Geographical Thought and Practice

 

Careers Officer

 

Research Interests

Overview
My research interests lie in social and cultural geography. My work advances thought at the intersection between feminist and queer theories and Deleuzoguattarian conceptions of the body, affect and ‘machinism’. It does so in order to deepen our understandings of the everyday politics of sexuality, race, ethnicity and gender. Recently, my research has coupled a concern with the politics of affect and embodiment with a consideration of broader political processes – for instance, in exploring feminist protests and in examining counter-extremism policy.

The Politics of Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Sexuality in Everyday Practice
This research considers how racialised, ethnicised, sexualised and gendered power relations are enacted and embodied in everyday practice. It uses Deleuzian theories of ‘affect’ and ‘machinism’ to explore new ways of thinking about the relationship between contemporary events and historically-specific memories of race, ethnicity, sexuality and gender. It also involves a rethinking of the relationships between bodies and territories, and develops new ideas about materiality and desire at the intersection of feminist, anti-racist, postcolonial and queer theory.

Gender, Representation and The Body in Feminist Protest
Based on empirical work conducted at SlutWalk marches in 2011, this project – a collaboration with Alex Fanghanel (University College London) – attends to the relationship between the body, discourse and abstraction in feminist activism. In order to understand this relationship, I have been developing a theorisation of the body that figures the body both in terms of positive difference (after Claire Colebrook) and in terms of biopolitically-controlled information (after Patricia T. Clough).

Sexuality, Gender and Belonging in the Biopolitics of Counter-extremism Policy
This research looks at how UK counter-extremism policy has incorporated gendered and sexualised norms in staking out understandings of ‘vulnerability’ to extremism. It extends my concern with the intersection between ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and acknowledges how religious belief and affiliation are increasingly being made to stand metonymically for ethnicity in a variety of political registers. Theoretically, this research brings together ideas about affect, aporia and biopolitics to construct an understanding of the relationship between everyday cosmopolitan practice and policy making and implementation.

Count Me In Too
Working with Kath Browne (University of Brighton), this research also involved working with both statutory and voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations to advance progressive social change for LGBT people in Brighton and Hove. As part of the project, I developed an innovative theorisation of a ‘sense of gender’ that belongs to the body but that is not the same as its fleshy materiality – a theorisation that has profound implications for feminist, queer and trans theories.

Publications:

Books

  • Browne, K., Lim, J., and Brown, G. (eds.) (2007), Geographies of Sexualities: Theory, Practices and Politics, Ashgate: Aldershot

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

  • Browne, K., Bakshi, L. and Lim, J. (2011), “It’s something you just have to ignore”: Understanding contemporary LGBT experiences of marginalisation, prejudice and abuse in the UK, Journal of Social Policy, 40, 4, pp. 739–756
  • Brown, G., Browne, K. and Lim, J. (2011), ‘Sexual Life’, in Del Casino Jr, V.J., Thomas, M., Cloke, P. And Panelli, R. (eds.), A Companion to Social Geography, Blackwell: Oxford, pp.293–308.
  • Lim, J. (2010) Immanent politics: thinking race and ethnicity through affect and machinism, Environment and Planning A, 42, 10, pp. 2393–2409
  • Browne, K. and Lim, J. (2010), Trans in the “Gay Capital of the UK”, Gender, Place and Culture, 17, 5, pp. 615–633
  • Lim, J. and Browne, K. (2009), ‘Senses of Gender’, Sociological Research Online, 14, 1
    Nominated for the Sage Prize for Innovation and/or Excellence 2010
  • Lim, J. (2008), ‘Encountering South Asian masculinity through the event’, in Dwyer, C. and Bressey, C. (eds.) New Geographies of Race and Racism, Ashgate: Aldershot, pp. 223–238.
  • Lim, J. (2007), ‘Queer critique and the politics of affect’, in Browne, K., Lim, J., and Brown, G. (eds.) Geographies of Sexualities: Theory, Practices and Politics, Ashgate: Aldershot, pp. 53–67.
  • Brown, G., Browne, K. and Lim, J. (2007), ‘Introduction, or Why Have a Book on Geographies of Sexualities?’ in Browne, K., Lim, J., and Brown, G. (eds.) Geographies of Sexualities: Theory, Practices and Politics, Ashgate: Aldershot, pp. 1–18.
  • Lim, J., Brown, G. and Browne, K. (2007), ‘Conclusions and Future Directions, or Our Hopes for Geographies of Sexualities (and Queer Geographies)’, in Browne, K., Lim, J., and Brown, G. (eds.) Geographies of Sexualities: Theory, Practices and Politics, Ashgate: Aldershot, pp. 213–223.