Emil Edenborg

About me

I am Ph.D. of political science and an associate professor of gender studies, and since 2024 employed as a senior lecturer. I am interested in queer perspectives on global politics in the widest sense. In my research I have examined LGBTQ politics and its relation to nationalism, how ideas of gender and sexuality are connected to geopolitical boundary-making, and the relation between visibility and inclusion/exclusion.

Teaching

Since 2024 I am director of studies of gender studies at Stockholm University. In addition, I teach on courses such as Genusperspektiv på våld, säkerhet och militarisering. I have previously taught political science, international relations, European studies, diversuty studies and gender studies at Malmö University and Stockholm University.

Research

My Ph.D. dissertation, which I defended at the Department of Political Science at Lund University in 2016, examined narratives on national belonging, gender and sexuality in contemporary Russian media, eg. in relation to the 2013 ban on “homosexual propaganda”. Theoretically I discussed questions of visibility, invisibility and belonging. The dissertation was published as a book entitled Politics of visibility and belonging: from Russia’s ”homosexual propaganda” laws to the Ukraine war (Routledge, 2017).  

After finishing my Ph.D. I was a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES) at Södertörn University. My research project, Gender and the everyday bordering of Europe, examined how geopolitical discourses of borders and belonging are underwritten and legitimated by ideas of gender.

Next, I worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs. My project, The geopolitics of ”traditional values”, studies how resistance to the rights of LGBTQ people and sexual and reproductive rights are legitimated geopolitically, in terms of protecting “traditional values” from harmful foreign influence, to strengthen national sovereignty or increase a state’s international influence.      

I have been a visiting researcher at Moscow State University (2012), UC Berkeley (2015) and Université Libre de Bruxelles (2022).

Currently I do research in three areas:

1) Development and foreign policy and the rights of LGBTIQ people, with focus on how Sweden funds and supports LGBTIQ activism internationally, and the dilemmas and power relations arising in such processes.

2) Political conflicts around LGBTIQ rights, in a project entitled: "Shameless storytelling? The child and gendered visions of the future in controversies around drag queen story reading in Sweden"

3) Feminist perspectives on militarization, in a project funded by the Baltic Sea Foundation, entitled: "From a 'Sea of Peace' to a 'NATO lake”? A feminist security analysis of island militarisation in the Baltic Sea"

Publications (selection)

Conway, D. & Edenborg, E. (2025). "Rainbow Diplomacy". International Affairs, accepted for publication

Edenborg, E. (2025). "Queer on the home front: Russian LGBTIQ activism and queer security in the wake of Russia’s war in Ukraine". Security Dialogue, online first.

Edenborg, E. (2025). "Supporting LGBTI rights through development cooperation in times of authoritarian resistance". UI Brief No. 1, January 2025, Swedish Institute of International Affairs.

Edenborg, E., & Strand, C. (2024). "Governing queer activism: power and visibility in state funding of international LGBTI organizations". European Journal of Politics and Gender, online first.

Edenborg, E., & Jungar, A. C. (2024). "From defending the family to protecting gays?: Change and continuity in the Nordic radical right's positions on LGBTQ issues". In The Nordic Populist Radical Right (pp. 180-204). London: Routledge.

Svensson, J., Edenborg, E., & Strand, C. (2024). "We are queer and the struggle is here! Visibility at the intersection of LGBT+ rights, post-coloniality, and development cooperation in Uganda". Sexualities, online first.

Edenborg, E. (2023). "Anti-gender politics as discourse coalitions: Russia’s domestic and international promotion of 'traditional values'". Problems of Post-communism, 70(2), 175-184.

Edenborg, E. (2023). "‘Traditional values’ and the narrative of gay rights as modernity: Sexual politics beyond polarization". Sexualities, 26(1-2), 37-53.

Edenborg, E. (2023). "Den ryska hbtq-rörelsen från glasnost till kriget i Ukraina: Ett civilsamhällesperspektiv på Rysslands misslyckade demokratisering". Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift.

Edenborg, E. (2022). "Putin’s Anti-Gay War on Ukraine". Boston Review. https://bostonreview.net/articles/putins-anti-gay-war-on-ukraine/ 

Hedling, E., Edenborg, E., & Strand, S. (2022) "Embodying military muscles and a remasculinized West: Influencer marketing, fantasy and 'the Face of NATO'". Global Studies Quarterly.

Edenborg, E. (2022). "Rysslands konservativa vändning och den globala anti-genusrörelsen". Nordisk Østforum.

Edenborg, E. (2022). "Time, queerness and global politics". lambda nordica 26(4-1), 183-187.

Edenborg, E. (2021). "Disinformation and gendered boundarymaking: Nordic media audiences making sense of 'Swedish decline'". Cooperation and Conflict, online first.

Edenborg, E. - Kehl, K. (2021). "På rätt sida av historien? Hbtq-rättigheter som global politik". I Edenborg, E. - Tornhill, C. - Åse, C. (red). Feministiska perspektiv på global politik. Lund: Studentlitteratur.

Edenborg, E. - Tornhill, C. - Åse, C. (red) (2021). Feministiska perspektiv på global politik. Lund: Studentlitteratur.

Edenborg, E. (2021). ”Queer theories of peace and security” in Confortini, C, Feron, E., Parashar, S. & Väyrynen, T. (eds.). The Routledge handbook of Feminist Peace Research. London: Routledge.

Brock, M. & Edenborg, E. (2020). ”’You cannot oppress those who do not exist’. Gay persecution in Chechnya and the politics of in/visibility”. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 26(4): 673-700.

Edenborg, E. (2020). “Visibility in Global Queer Politics”. In Bosia, M.J., McEvoy, S., & Rahman, M. (eds). Oxford Handbook of Global LGBT and Sexual Diversity Politics, Oxford University Press.

Edenborg, E. (2020). ”Russia’s spectacle of ’traditional values’: Rethinking the politics of visibility”. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 22(1), 106-126.

Edenborg, E. (2020). “Endangered Swedish values: Immigration, gender equality and ‘migrants’ sexual violence’. In Hellström, A., Norocel, O. C., & Bak Jorgensen, M. (eds). Hope and Nostalgia at the Intersection between Culture and Welfare, Springer.

Edenborg, E. (2020). “Russian LGBT Politics and Rights”. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, Oxford University Press.

Agius, C. & Edenborg, E. (2019). Gendered Bordering Practices in Swedish and Russian Foreign and Security Policy. Political Geography, 71, 56-66.

Edenborg, E. (2018). ”Saving Women and Bordering Europe: Narratives of ’Migrants’ Sexual Violence’ and Geopolitical Imaginaries in Russia and Sweden.” Geopolitics, 1-22.

Altermark, N. & Edenborg, E. (2018). ”Visualizing the included subject: photography, progress narratives and intellectual disability.” Subjectivity, 11(4), 287-302.

Edenborg, E. (2018). ”Homophobia as Geopolitics: ’Traditional Values’ and the Negotiation of Russia’s Place in the World”. J. Mulholland – N. Montagna – E. Sanders-McDonagh (Eds.) Gendering Nationalism: Intersections of Nation, Gender and Sexuality. London: Palgrave.

Edenborg, E. (2017). Politics of Visibility and Belonging: From Russia´s “Homosexual Propaganda” Laws to the Ukraine War. London: Routledge.

Edenborg, E. (2017). ”Creativity, Geopolitics and Ontological Security: Satire on Russia and the War in Ukraine”. Postcolonial Studies, 20(3): 294-316.

Persson, E. (2015). ”Banning ’Homosexual Propaganda’. Belonging and Visibility in Contemporary Russian Media”. Sexuality & Culture, 19(2):256-274; re-published in Harding, R. (2016): Law and sexuality: Critical concepts in law. London: Routledge.