Professor of Feminist and Security Studies at SOAS, University of London and founding director of the Feminist Centre for Racial Justice. Awino received her PhD (2012) in Gender Studies from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Awino’s work is grounded in African feminist, queer, and Black internationalist thought as central frameworks for thinking about power and justice. Across her work is an exploration of racial justice and Black solidarity that focusses on the majority world and Africa to reimagine Pan African and Internationalist strategies for anti-racist, feminist, and queer liberation.
OUR TEAM
The centre is powered by multi-sited relationships with academic centres and feminist networks.
Awino Okech
Daniela Cortés-Vargas
Daniela is a Latin American researcher with an academic background in Social Work from the University of Costa Rica. She is passionate about generating knowledge through a feminist lens and has collaborated with public institutions, NGOs and activist movements. Committed to intersectional justice, her work is grounded in participatory approaches that advocate for groups facing structural inequalities based on class, race and gender. Daniela thrives in interdisciplinary and multicultural environments and enjoys collaborating with international teams on projects that promote social change. As an FCRJ associate Daniela supports a range of research and communications projects.
Sharon Lumbi
Sharon is a communications professional and digital storyteller with a background in public relations. She enjoys translating complex ideas into clear, engaging stories that connect people with research and ideas. As FCRJ’s Social Media Associate, she supports the Centre’s digital communications through social media strategy, visual storytelling, and content creation.
Nadia Asri
With a background spanning diverse sectors and regions, Nadia Asri (she/her) is a dynamic trainer and facilitator with a deep commitment to anti-oppression and equity work. Her practice integrates innovative methodologies, including the design of large-scale wide games and futuristic visioning exercises, to deliver workshops and long-term educational processes that drive transformation. Nadia has supported organisations in creating systems and strategies that foster justice and inclusion. Her work is rooted in participatory, trauma-informed approaches, enabling meaningful reflection, collaboration, and the development of actionable visions for lasting change. Nadia supports various programmes across the centre.
Management Committee
The Management Committee acts serves as an internal advisory team to the director to support strategic planning and operations of the Centre.
Ida Hadjivayanis is a scholar of Swahili language and translation whose work bridges African Studies and Indian Ocean histories. She collaborated with Salha Hamdani on memoirs that offer a lived perspective of an ordinary woman on the Swahili littoral from the 1910s to the 1960s. The books—Salama binti Rubeya: Memories from the Swahili Littoral (2025) and Salama binti Rubeya: Simulizi kutoka Mwambao wa Bahari ya Hindi (2025)—foreground voices often excluded from historical narratives, highlighting how everyday lives are shaped by broader historical forces. Ida’s research sits at the intersection of translation, the Indian Ocean world, and African Studies. Her academic publications focus on translation and the Swahili diaspora, while her public speaking engagements explore themes such as multilingualism in Africa, decolonisation in translation, unequal encounters across the Indian Ocean, and Swahili’s role as a global lingua franca.
Dr Lucia Kula is an International Human Rights Lawyer and Lecturer in Law and Gender at SOAS, University of London. Her research adopts an interdisciplinary approach to law, borders, gendered violence, and decolonisation. She is a former refugee from Angola and writes on law and forced displacement issues and identity in the African diaspora, with a focus on critically analysing the experiences of women and other marginalised communities. She convenes the Gender Studies and Law Programme, and she is the Widening Participation Lead for the School of Law within SOAS. She also consults for other Higher Education institutions in the UK on Race Equity and Decolonising The Academy.
Rai’s research interests lie in performance and politics, gender and politics and feminist international political economy. She has published widely in these areas, including Gender and the Political Economy of Development (Polity, 2004) Performing Representation: Women Members in the Indian Parliament (with Carole Spary; OUP), 2019; Oxford Handbook of Politics and Performance (2021; co-eds M Gluhovic, S Jestrovic and M Saward) and is currently working on a book titled Doing Politics Sideways. Her latest book (forthcoming) Depletion: the human costs of caring.
Dr Kuziwakwashe Zigomo is a lecturer in The Politics and International Relations of Africa and Migration at SOAS. Prior to joining SOAS she was a lecturer in The International Relations of the Global South based in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent. Kuziwakwashe obtained her PhD from the Department of Politics and International Relations at Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL). She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Media and Communication Studies from Monash University South Africa, and a Master of International Studies Postgraduate degree in Peace and Conflict Resolution from the University of Queensland, Australia. Her research interests include: southern African politics (particularly Zimbabwe, South Africa and the overarching SADC region); peace-building and security; religion; migration, citizenship and belonging; gender; and development.
Advisory Collective
The collective provides intellectual and institutional guidance for the Centre’s work.
Yolande Bouka is the Canada Research Chair in Afrofeminist Thought and Political Transformation. She is an Associate Professor in Political Studies at Queen’s University in Canada and the co-director of the MINDS-funded Research Network on Women, Peace, and Security. Her research focuses on gender, race, African politics and security, and political violence. The key questions driving her multidisciplinary research agenda is how vulnerable groups and individuals understand and navigate structural and political violence and how these experiences influence the social and political landscapes of conflict-affected societies. Her research has been supported by the Fulbright Scholar Program, the American Association of University Women, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Before Queen’s, she was a Visiting Assistant Professor at George Washington University and a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Denver. She has worked extensively with development and security organizations including USAID, the UN, the African Union, and the U.S. Institute of Peace. From 2014 to 2016, she led peace and security research at the Institute for Security Studies in Nairobi.
Eddie Bruce-Jones is Professor of Law and Dean of the College of Law at SOAS, University of London. His areas of research and writing are race and migration, colonial indenture and law and the humanities.He is the author of Race in the Shadow of Law: State Violence in Contemporary Europe and Principal Investigator on the 2022-24 AHRC-Funded Project “Towards an Integrated Colonial Archive: Humanities, Law and British Indentureship”. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Institute of Race Relations, the Editorial Board of the Journal of Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Law and advisory board of the European Law Open. He is an Essays Editor at the literary magazine, The Offing.
Shereen Essof is a Zimbabwean feminist, popular educator and organiser. Shereen’s work is grounded in her engagement with womxn in social movements, community-based organisations and cultural collectives. She strives to understand power inherent in the interlocking nature of oppressive systems and from that understanding, to imagine, organise and build towards liberated futures. Shereen is committed to amplifying the voice, visibility and organising power of womxn through decolonizing knowledge production and acknowledging the catalytic possibilities of popular culture as a vehicle for change. Shereen currently serves as Executive Director of Just Associates (JASS), a global feminist movement strengthening organization that equips and strengthens the leadership and organizing capacity of women leaders and their organizations in Mesoamerica, Southeast Asia, and Southern Africa.
Shuvai Busuman Nyoni is the Executive Director of the African Leadership Centre (ALC), Nairobi, Kenya. She is also a Gender, Peace and Security researcher and practitioner. Prior to joining the Centre, Shuvai worked as the Director of Interventions and before that Regional Advocacy Specialist for the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) in Johannesburg South Africa. She has worked extensively with a range of regional and national policy makers, civil society actors and academics in post-conflict and transitional countries on the African continent. Through her work Shuvai has engaged with issues pertaining to post-conflict reconstruction, governance, social and economic justice, transitional justice, reconciliation, and national and community healing. Shuvai has also served as a gender advisor and investigator for sexual and gender based violence as crimes in conflict in several Commissions of Inquiry including the Obasanjo led African Union Commission of Inquiry on South Sudan and the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan. Shuvai also serves in an various board and advisory capacities as a member of the Tana Forum Technical Committee and she represents the ALC on the Steering Committee of the African Union’s Network of African Women in Conflict Prevention and Mediation – FemWise-Africa. She is also a member of the United Nations Trust Fund on Human Security Advisory Board.
Dzodzi Tsikata is Professor of Development Studies at SOAS, University of London. Before this, she was Professor of Development Sociology and immediate past Director of the Institute of African Studies (IAS) at the University of Ghana. Her research in the last 30 years has been in the areas of gender and development policies and practices; agrarian change and rural livelihoods; the labour relations of the informal economy and transformative social policy. Her recent publications are the co-edited (with Elisabeth Prügl and Fenneke Reysoo) Forum in the Journal of Peasant Studies on the theme “Commercialising Agriculture/Reorganising Gender” (JPS 48,7, September 2021). She is also the Principal Investigator of a pan-African research, networking and advocacy project, the Gender Equitable and Transformative Social Policy for Post-COVID-19 Africa (GETSPA) which is examining the social policy trajectories of thirty-one African countries. She is the secretary of the executive committee of IDEAS and a member of the Agrarian South Network and a member of the editorial collectives of Feminist Africa and Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy.