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Nora Honkala

Profile picture of Nora Honkala

Deputy Director of Postgraduate Research

Areas of interest

  • Gender and Law
  • Feminist Theory
  • Refugee Law
  • Human Rights Law
  • Public International Law

Postgraduate supervision

Nora welcomes PhD proposals in the areas of gender and law, particularly feminist and socio-legal approaches to refugee law, IHR or PIL.

Current doctoral students

Alex Powell: Queering Refugee Law: A Study of Social Group Categorisation in the UK Asylum Apparatus (City, University of London).

Research centres and groups

Background

Nora is a Lecturer in Law and the Deputy Director of Postgraduate Research. She returned to the School of Law in June 2020. Prior to that, she was a Lecturer at City, University of London and a Teaching Fellow at University of Reading. In 2017, she was also a Visiting Lecturer at the Henley Business School, running the Gender and Feminism at Work module.

Nora's research interests lie primarily in the field of gender and law, particularly feminist and socio-legal approaches to refugee law, human rights law and public international law.

Together with Flora Renz (Kent), Nora convenes the Gender, Sexuality and Law Stream at the Socio-Legal Studies Association Annual Conferences.

Academic qualifications

LLB (University of Melbourne, 2006), LLM in International Law and World Order (University of Reading, 2009), PhD (University of Reading, 2015), FHEA (2017)

Other publications

  • Honkala, Nora (2017). Forced Marriage Claims by Women Seeking Asylum at the Upper Tribunal.
    Women's Asylum News e bulletin for the Women's Project at Asylum Aid.
  • Honkala, Nora (2017). Gendered Political Opinion Ground in Forced Marriage Asylum Appeals.
    Social & Legal Studies Blog.
  • Honkala, Nora (2014). "As Forced Marriage Gets Criminalised in the UK- What then of Asylum Seeker Women Fleeing Forced Marriages?"
    Inherently Human: Critical Perspectives on Law, Gender and Sexuality.

Thesis

  • Honkala, Nora: (Mis) Understanding Forced Marriages: International Law, Rights and Their Limits in Asylum Seeker Women's Cases, PhD Thesis, 2015

Conference presentations

  • 'Brexit, Migration and the Politics of Fear', ICON-S International Society of Public Law, Hong Kong (2018)
  • "An unhappy interlude": Trivialisation of forced marriage in asylum seeker women's cases. SLSA Conference, School of Law, Lancaster University (2016).
  • (Mis) Understanding Forced Marriage - The Domestic Application of the Refugee Convention in Asylum Seeker Women's Claims in the UK.
  • The Nordic Asylum Law Seminar 'Unequal Treatment: The Root of All Claims for Protection?', University of Uppsala, Sweden (2015).
  • 'She, of course, holds no political opinions'- The Gendering of Politics and Asylum Adjudication". SLSA Conference, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen (2014).
  • Internal Relocation Option in Forced Marriage Asylum Appeals Cases- Why Gender Matters? Critical Legal Conference, Queen's University Belfast (2013).
  • Obstacles to 'fair and just' decision-making at the first instance refugee determination process. University of Reading (2013).
  • Gendered Judgments in Asylum Seeker Women's English Immigration and Asylum Cases. Law and Society Association Conference, Honolulu, Hawaii (2012).
  • Forced Marriage and the Rights of Asylum Seeker Women. University of Reading (2011).
  • Uncovering Silences: The Role of Feminist Scholarship in Challenging Gendered Constructions in International Refugee Law. The European Society of International Law (ESIL) Feminism and International Law Interest Group, University of Leicester (2011).
  • Uncovering Silences: The Role of Feminist Scholarship in Challenging Gendered Constructions in International Refugee Law. PECANS Sexuality and Legal Transformation Conference, University of Westminster (2011).

Publications