PhD Thesis
Title: Reimagining Human Mobility: Queering International Migration Law
PhD Supervisor and Co-Supervisor: Vincent Chetail and Janna Wessels
Expected completion date: 2026
This research aims to join international law's various attempts of 'queering' the discipline by applying a queer lens on international migration law. In particular, it wonders if and how certain marginal queer subjects have space to 'exist as themselves' within the framework, i.e. whether international migration law can and wants to accommodate and include those queer subjectivities which were not accounted for at the law-making stage. This analysis is carried out through two case studies: gender non-conforming asylum-seekers on one hand and queer polygamous families applying for family reunification on the other. The diverging findings of the case studies vis-à-vis the question of 'existing space' are then compared to trace a conclusion on the way the heteronormative state utilises the tool of international migration law to ensure the perpetuation of its own survival.
Profile
Irene Manganini (she/they) is a PhD candidate in International Law at the Graduate Institute of Geneva and a Teaching Assistant in the Institute’s MINT programme. Their research focuses broadly speaking on the intersection between international migration law and queer theory. Up until recently, Irene worked as UNHCR-designated asylum adjudicator in the Territorial Asylum Commission of Milan. Prior to that, she worked in different capacities with IOM in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Bangladesh and with UNHCR in Italy, as well as with human rights NGOs and grassroot activist groups working on migration issues.
Research Interests
- Queer and Feminist Legal Studies
- Global South Approaches to International Law
- Critical Political Theory
- International Migration Law
- International Human Rights Law
- International Law of the Sea
Relevant Publications and Works
- « The invisibility of gender identity claims » in Meili, Steven, and Stevens, Dallal, New Research Agenda in Refugee and Asylum Law, Edward Elgar (under contract 2025).
- You cannot pinkwash genocide: Why the (queer) refugee law studies community should be talking about Palestine – and why it is not, feministiqa (Spring 2025)
- “Refugee law between resistance and compliance: a reparative reading of a classic feminist struggle”, RLI blog, 15/10/2024.
- Fixed Categories vs. Fluid Identities: How Are Queer Voices Silenced in the Theory and Practice of Asylum Law?; Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 20 - 28 (2023)
- "The Refugee Status Determination of Transgender Asylum-Seekers: a Queer Critique", Global Migration Centre (GMC) Research Paper n°24 (2020)
Fellowships, Grants and Awards
- Doc.Mobility, UNIGE and Graduate Institute (2024)
- Graduate Institute Scholarship (2021 - 2025)
- UN|DESA Italian Fellowship Programme (2020)
- Prix Ladislas Mysyrowicz, Graduate Institute (2019)
- European Voluntary Service Programme (2015)
- Erasmus University Exchange Scholarship (2013 - 2014)
AFFILIATIONS
- Visiting PhD Candidate, University of Milan Bicocca, School of Law (October 2024, June 2025)
- Global Migration Centre (IHEID)
- Gender Centre (IHEID)
- Visiting researcher, Amsterdam Centre for Migration and Refugee Law (VU Amsterdam, 2024)
- Refugee Law Initiative (University of London)