
Dr Egle Cesnulyte
PhD, MSc, BA
Expertise
My expertise lies with feminist political economy of everyday life. I am interested in ways that gender defines possibilities for livelihood making and gendered agency, especially in the contexts of the Global South.
Current positions
Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Development
School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies
Contact
Press and media
Many of our academics speak to the media as experts in their field of research. If you are a journalist, please contact the University’s Media and PR Team:
Research interests
My broad interest is in the ways that gender functions to include or exclude individuals from opportunities related to their everyday lives. More particularly, I explore the ways that global economic and political structures are gendered and limits individuals’ agency.
For the past decade I have been working with sex workers in Kenya to explore the political economy of Kenya and the limits of women’s agency within it. My work with women selling sex in Mombasa and investigation of their work and livelihood strategies resulted in my first manuscript Selling Sex in Kenya: Gendered Agency under Neoliberalism (CUP, 2019). My later work has moved to explore sex worker activism and politics in eastern Africa.
Currently I am developing my research in two new directions. First, I am working with Kenyan community sex worker paralegals to explore everyday gendered access to justice for marginalised populations. Second, I work in the team developing research project on informality in food security strategies of Turks and Caicos Islands; especially the coloniality and gendered nature of the global infrastructure, and food supply chains in particular.
Projects and supervisions
Thesis supervisions
Publications
Selected publications
28/11/2019Selling Sex in Kenya: Gendered Agency under Neoliberalism
Selling Sex in Kenya: Gendered Agency under Neoliberalism
Recent publications
01/10/2024Following the Money: Kenyan Sex Workers’ Strategies During Crisis
Sex Work Today: Erotic Labor in the 21st Century
Sustaining and Contesting Commodity Frontiers
Commodity Frontiers Journal
The moral economy of sex work in Mombasa, Kenya
Critical African Studies
Selling Sex in Kenya: Gendered Agency under Neoliberalism
Selling Sex in Kenya: Gendered Agency under Neoliberalism
Gendered Agency in Constrained Circumstances: Researching Women Selling Sex in Kenya
Understanding Global Development Research: Fieldwork Issues, Experiences and Reflections
Teaching
POLI10004 The Politics of the Global South
POLIM2032 Gender and Development