School of Sociology and Social Policy
 

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Tiago Machado Costa

ESRC Doctoral Researcher and Part-time Teacher,

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Biography

I use they/them pronouns.

In Portugal, I was a Director (2015-6) for a LGBTI+ youth charity, and sat on various EDI committees and boards, at both local and national levels, including the Lisbon City Council Equality and Inclusion Forum and the National Youth Council's (CNJ) policy steering group. I am a trained Equality and Inclusion Educator and have delivered workshops on LGBTI+ inclusive education and professional practice at dozens of schools and universities in the Lisbon Metropolitan area.

I hold a BA (Hons) Sociology, First class, and a MA Social Science Research Methods (Sociology), with Distinction, both from the University of Nottingham.

Teaching Summary

Identity in Popular Culture (2021-2023) - Seminar Tutor and Marker

Investigating Social Worlds (2022) - Marker

Research Summary

The Personal (Preference) is Political: Racialized Eroticisms and Sexual Racism in Queer Men's Sexual Cultures in the UK

My ESRC-funded research focuses on sexual racism and racialized desires in gay/bisexual men's sexual cultures in the UK. I explore the racial dynamics that mediate sexually-charged spaces and communities, which come to be organized around certain racialized ideas of desirability and queerness. In doing so, I pay attention to the geographical landscapes of gay/bisexual men's sexual spaces to better understand the collective nature of sexual life and its fluid constructions of desirability as a mechanism of normative power, both sexual and racial. The project uses a multi-method qualitative design using vignette-interviews and video-diaries, hearing from a diverse range of men and non-binary people across the UK. Ultimately, I work towards hybridizing queer theory and critical race theory to better understand the matrix of power where racialization and erotic ideation underpin socio-sexual life. Conference Presentations and Public Talks

Race and Desire and Sexual Racism and Whiteness. Surviving Society Podcast: upcoming.

The Personal (Preference) is Political: Racialized Desires and Gay and Bisexual Men's Sexual Cultures in the UK. BSA Annual Conference (Online): Building Equality and Justice Now: April 2022. [Access Link]

(L)GBTQ+men's sexuality, sex, and spaces, The Sex Tapes Series, LGBT Foundation (Online): February 2022.

Public Preferences, Private Desires: Reconceptualising the Post-Racial Public-Private Divide on Grindr in Relation to Discourses of Racialised Desires and Dating Practices, Viral Masculinities Conference (Online): September 2020. [Access Link]

School of Sociology and Social Policy

Law and Social Sciences building
University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham, NG7 2RD

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