Research

&

Publications

Research Interests – Trauma, Violence – Sexual, Gendered and Structural Violence, Migration, Sexual and Gender-Expansive Communities, Asylum Claimants and Refugees, Gender and Sexuality, Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery, the Coloniality of Migration Law/ Legal Practices, Trauma-Informed Practices, Mental Health, Decolonial Research Methods, Participatory Action Research and Qualitative Research.

RESEARCH

  • PhD in Psychology Thesis

The Hare and the Baboon: Intersecting Violences Experienced by African Sexual and Gender-Expansive Individuals in the UK Asylum System

The research explores co-researchers’ narratives about their experiences of the UK asylum regime and how structural and symbolic violences are implicated in the shared narratives. Twenty-seven narratives of the UK asylum system were gathered from diverse sources, including forcibly displaced co-researchers, legal caseworkers, NGO workers and substantive interview documents. The gathered experiences demonstrated structural and symbolic violence perpetrated by the state, through narratives of violent uncertainty, exclusion, vulnerabilisation to exploitation and gendered violence, dislocation and, intersectional discrimination and colonial notions of gender and sexuality. These findings reveal the intersecting and distinct migration obstacles underpinned by anti-Black discrimination that creates systems of racialised and gendered violence against applicants – forming part of the UK’s hostile environment and exposing a reality wherein historical legacies of colonialism continue to shape the UK’s asylum regime and bordering practices. The findings demonstrate the UK Home Office’s significant failings in safeguarding sexual and gender-expansive asylum claimants, and how the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated their precarious situation. From a decolonial feminist perspective, the participatory action research methodology and principles contribute to knowledge on decolonial and liberatory research practices and offer suggestions for anti-oppressive practices to support just asylum claims. (Advisor: Professor Floretta Boonzaier).

  • MSc in Forensic Psychology dissertation

“He was treated like a criminal”. Evaluating the impact of detention-related trauma on LGBTI refugees

Achieved through in-depth self-characterisation analysis, the research employed a design within a Personal Construct Theory perspective (PCP) to examine personal constructs developed by sexual and gender expansive asylum claimants and refugees in resilience to the trauma of detention and criminalisation by UK media and government control policies. (Advisor: Forensic Psychologist, Dee Anand).

  • BSc in Psychology dissertation

The mass media`s coverage of Terrorism and its relationship to anxiety, fear of crime, xenophobia and stereotyping.

PUBLICATIONS

Peer-Reviewed Publications

  • Mhlangulana, A., Thusi K., Mosime, L., Chirape S., Boonzaier, F., Zimri, C., Mpofu,T., Daya, J., Carr, K., & Behari-Leak, Y. (2024). Researching violence, researching ourselves: Unsettling knowledge production on gendered and sexual violence. Social and Health Sciences Journal Special Issue. UNISA Institute for Social and Health Sciences.

  • Shabalala, S., Boonzaier, F & Chirape, S. (2023). Challenging Ciscentric Feminist Margins: A Study on Gender-Based Violence in the Lives of Black Trans Women in South Africa. Psychology in Society.

  • Chirape, S. R. T. (2021). Centring healing: reflexivity, activism and the decolonial act of researching communities existing on the margin. Psychology in Society.

  • Chirape, S. R. T. (2015). Trauma: Not just for the victims, a review. Convenor: Lorraine Perry. The Forensic Update No 119, 2015.

Book Chapters

  • Chirape, S.R.T (2025). Visual activism and research in refugee-related-trauma. In Oso, L., Ribas-Mateos, N & Moralli, M. (ed). Elgar Encyclopedia of Global Migration: New Mobilities & Artivism. Edward Elgar.

  • Chirape, S. R. T. (2018; 2022). “He was treated like a criminal”: Evaluating the impact of detention related trauma on LGBTI refugees. In Linton, S. and Walcott, R. (Ed). The Colour of Madness: Exploring BAME mental health in the UK. An anthology. Skiddaw publishers.

  • Chirape, S. R.T. (2014). The freedom of others, In Earnshaw, H. & Penrhyn-Jones, A. (Ed). Here we stand: Women changing the world. Honno, UK.

Commissioned Research

  • Nekura, R & Chirape, S.R.T (2020). ISLA Guide on Litigating Human Trafficking Cases in Africa. Commissioned research: Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa (ISLA). https://www.the-isla.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/ISLA-Guides_Litigating-Human-Trafficking-Cases_Ebook_PKSC_17-July-2021.pdf

Non-Academic Publications

  • Chirape, S.R.T. (2022). Healing is liberation: Centralising decolonial and collective healing praxis in feminist organizing. Commissioned by Urgent Action Fund Africa: For womn’s human rights. https://www.uaf-africa.org. https://www.uaf-africa.org/healing-is-liberation-centralising-decolonial-and-collective-healing-praxis-in-feminist-organising/

  • Skyetshookii, S. (2017). Hidden in the open: An honorarium essay to South African photographer, Zanele Muholi’s body of photographic work, Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness, catalogue edited by Renee Mussai. Autograph ABP, London.

  • Chirape, S. R.T. (2014). The ritual communication of black queer bodies. The Ladybeard magazine, Sex issue. UK.

  • Skyetshookii, S. (2014). Transgender day of Remembrance: An artist's view. The Commonwealth writers’ website.

Work Under Review

  • Daya, J., Mhlangulana, A., Mosime, L., Thusi, K., Zimri, C., Behari-Leak, Y., Mpofu, T., Carr, K., Boonzaier, F. & Chirape. S. (Forthcoming). Researching Ourselves, Researching Others: Making Meaning of Research on Violence and Trauma. In Tshefer, T. & Rustin, C. (ed). New Imaginaries for intersectional gender and sexual justice scholarship (ed).

Work in Progress

  • Collaborative paper on sexual violence against black trans women in South Africa

  • Book on migration

  • Graphic novel based on narratives from the PhD project