Dr Koen Slootmaeckers is a Reader in International Politics at City St George’s, University of London. He is the EDI officer and trustee for UACES. He has previously held leadership roles in professional associations as co-chair and executive board member of the Council of European Studies' Gender and Sexuality Research Network. As an international political sociologist, Koen's research is broadly focused on the ways in which boundaries, inclusion and exclusion are maintained in society and within international relations. He has done extensive research on the promotion of and resistance to LGBT equality in international politics. Koen has extensively researched the EU accession of Serbia and how this process affects LGBT politics and activism. This research ultimately culminated in his book ‘Coming In: Sexual politics and EU accession in Serbia’ (2023, Manchester University Press), for which he was awarded the 2025 EUSA Best Book Prize. His current research focuses on the place of Pride events within the LGBTI movement and engages in several theoretical querying of different politics embedded in Pride. For example, he has published on the geo-temporalities of Pride (with Mike Bosia). Other recent publications include: a piece examining the unexpected politics of ILGA-Europe’s rainbow maps (with Francesca Ammaturo), a piece examining the role of LGBT rights within the EU’s identity processes, and relational theorisation of the ways in which masculinities and nationalism as intertwined. 

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Where do you see the most exciting research/debates happening in your field?

To be honest, I find this probably the most difficult question one can ask me. One, because it makes me question whether I do belong to a field or whether I even know a field. As a scholar who has moved disciplines over the course of my career and now happily sits within the liminal space of disciplinary boundaries as well as subject matters, I struggle to identify what would be the most exciting research. That being said, I do think there is a political need to highlight some of the work that is being done within the sphere of sex and sexuality at a time when the space for doing this work is increasingly under attack. To me, the excitement comes from the new generation of scholars emerging that remain adamant to query the world and to challenge power by interrogating how gender and sexuality shape our collective and the world. Seeing a new generation question what has been taken for granted to and stay bold in their determination to challenge structures of power to generate something new is what gives me hope and excitement. This is even more meaningful and important, I believe, as we live in a world where issues and sexuality are increasingly put under pressure and come under intense political scrutiny and vicious political attacks – both within our everyday (by the dismantling of Equality Diversity and Inclusion work by Trump, or the banning of Pride by Orban) and the Academy (by the so-called gender critical scholars and those using academic freedom to stifle progressive politics).

But if I were to answer, I would do so by thinking about some of the recent discussions, writings and publications that have stayed with me over the last few years. Amongst those, I think it is incredibly important to query some of the ways in which sexuality is used within international politics. Here, I think about the kind of politics pursued by the anti-gender movement/campaigns who engage in a wider international politics of what Dean Cooper-Cunningham (forthcoming) would call, “heteronormative internationalism”, but also the ways in which sexuality is folded into politics of modernity that creates new, and reinforces old, hierarchies. Here, I think about the work that unpacks and showcases the different ways in which the embrace of LGBTQI rights by the EU has been folded into a variety of other politics. For example, the work by Laura Eigenmann who beautifully excavated the evolution and elevation of LGBTQI rights within the EU’s identity work, whilst also querying how this process has shaped how the EU imagines LGBTQI equality within a homonormative project. Or the work by Lucrecia Rubio Grundell, who, in one of the most brilliant pieces of I have read over the years, argued that the inclusion of LGBT rights within the EU project happened on the back of sex workers. With great grace, she demonstrates how the EU’s LGBTI policies exclude sex work as a constitutive other so that the neoliberal and homonormative sexual subject of rights and new sexual respectability could be constructed – a subject worthy of protection by the EU.

I am also always super excited to read the excellent work on sexual violence in war time, and particularly the work on conflict related sexual violence against men and boys by Heleen Touquet, Philipp Schulz, Henri Myrtinnen, and others. Their new Routledge Handbook of Masculinities, Conflict, and Peacebuilding is a must read, as are their reflection on self-care for scholars working on gender-based violence issues.

How has the way you understand the world changed over time, and what (or who) prompted the most significant shifts in your thinking?

My thinking has changed a lot over time and there have been many influences that have shaped me – both through encounters in my career as well as the freedom that job security has given me to trust myself and start believing in my own perspectives and path. I see academia and scholarly work as a collective endeavour, where we can each achieve more if we support and learn from each other. As such, I believe my world view is shaped by the incredible encounters I have had over the years, especially those coming from the many fantastic feminist and queer scholars I have met over the years. There are too many to name, but I do want........

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