Luísa Calvete Portela Barbosa

Luísa is a Lecturer of International Relations at Cardiff University and a Research Associate at SOAS. Her research is situated within critical IR with a specific focus on Marxist, postcolonial, and gender literature.

Luísa is particularly interested in exploring the relationship between capitalism, race, gender, and colonialism in the constitution of today’s world, and in critical and non-Western methodological approaches to studying IR. Luísa’s regional expertise is Brazil, and South Africa.

At SOAS, Luísa will be working on two-interrelated projects. The first project draws from her ethnographic work in Johannesburg to discuss colonial violence, memory, and anti-colonial resistance today using life stories. The second looks at the relationship between modernity, nation-building in the Global South, and the politics of borders in Europe based on migrant narratives and archives.

Luísa is also a volunteer researcher at the Latin American Women’s Rights Service (LAWRS). As part of this work, Luísa has co-written a forthcoming report that draws from the experience of Latin American women to demonstrate how UK immigration policies facilitate the invisibility and exploitation of domestic workers.