Current Research
I am currently working on my first monograph, under contract with Bristol University Press. It offers a reverse reading of the pains of imprisonment and argues that institutional lack and emotional suffering can also be sources of meaning, critique, and resistance.
I have also published on this work in Theoretical Criminology, in an article that explores how people in prison use self-harm not only as an expression of pain, but also as an embodied form of resistance and survival. This work engages deeply with the intersections of pain and pleasure, reframing self-inflicted pain as, at times, an empowering or communicative act within contexts of extreme deprivation.
Research Projects
2022-2025
Rates of self-harm are high among prisoners. My previous research has explored ex-prisoners’ paradoxical accounts of pleasure in combination with pain and suffering in prison. I have also researched how factors such as gender and sexuality relate to the persistent problem of self-harming (Vasiliou 2020).
This EU-funded Prison Self-harm project, explores the issue within the framework of Queer Criminology, which focuses on the intersections of gender, sexuality, and the criminal justice system.
The project was comprised of two phases: working with Associate Professor Mathew Ball at the School of Justice, University of Queensland, as well as Associate Professor Eric Stanley at the Gender and Women's Department, University of California, Berkeley (June 2022-December 2023). And, in the final incoming phase (2024-2025), with Associate Professor of Sociology Anastasia Chamberlen.
2020-09
Advisory Committee, “Building Capacities to Prevent and Respond to any Form of Violence against the LGBTQI+ community in Higher Education Institutions in Europe” University of Cyprus, Erasmus Project
2020-09
Advisory Committee, Equality and Citizenship Programme project UP4Diversity, “UP4Diversity: Empowering Young People and Youth Workers to Become Active Upstanders in the Prevention of Violence Towards LGBTIQ+ People in the Digital Era.” University of Cyprus.
2020-07
Researcher and contributor to the final report, VoiceIt: Strengthening LGBTQI+’s Voice in Politics, VoiceIt aims at: Increasing LGBTQI+’s participation in political decision-making Funded by the European Union’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (REC 2014-2020)
2019-01
Archive researcher at Clio for Gender Cyprus Library Online, Women’s History Archive: Cyprus Library Online for gender”. Under the program Restart "Social Innovation 2016-2020" of the Research Promotion Foundation.
2018-09
Researcher at “Weaving a Queer Future: Stories of single and/or gay parenting in Cyprus.” This research ained to investigate parenting through the narrative of seven LGBTQ parents in Cyprus.
2015-06
Researcher at "Sexual orientation in Cyprus: An in depth exploration of experiences of violence, discrimination and its impact among the LGB community in Cyprus" Under ILGA- Europe’s 9th Call for Proposals for Human Rights Violations Documentation Fund
2014-04
Researcher in prison settings, PEBBLE was a two-year collaborative project funded under the Lifelong Learning Programme. The project brought together a team of leading educational institutions and penal institutions in Europe with the aim to contribute to the prison education for inmates and more specifically the development of specific key competences through the use of e-learning training methodologies.
2013-05
Researcher in Prison settings, Past, present, emergent and future identity of young inmates. The study aimed to investigate the educational, occupational, religious, political and social identity profiles of young inmates, as well as the influence of education on their identities. In collaboration with Neapolis University.