Dr Ale Boussalem

Dr Ale Boussalem is a Lecturer in Human Geography in the School of Geography and Sustainable Development at the University of St Andrews. He is a social and cultural geographer whose work sits at the intersection of queer geographies and geographies of race and racialisation.

His research has examined how homo/bi/transphobia and Islamophobia/racism shape the experiences of LGBTQ+ people of Muslim background living in Brussels, Belgium, and explored the queer and anti-racist spaces of resistance and solidarity formed at these intersections.

More recent projects have focused on the everyday experiences and sense of place among Italians of North-African background, as well as community and neighbourhood-based responses to anti-migrant racism and far-right mobilisation in Scotland.

Across these different directions, his work responds to the urgent need to recognise and understand the multi-scalar geographies of resistance and solidarity being imagined and enacted in a moment of intensifying authoritarianism.

He is also interested in how this intensifying authoritarianism permeates higher education, and how critical pedagogical approaches can contribute to imagining resistant geographies within and beyond the geography classroom.

His work is grounded in queer, intersectional, and critical race epistemologies, and employs a range of qualitative methods including participant observation, interviews, and participatory theatre.

His research has been published in journals such as Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Sexualities, Gender, Place & Culture, and Social and Cultural Geography.