Awino Okech

Awino Okech (born January 1980) is a Kenyan academic, feminist and professor based at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). Her research and teaching intersects gender, sexuality, conflict, and security studies.

Early life and education Awino Okech grew up in Kisumu, Kenya, and her mother was an educator. Okech has a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Nairobi, Kenya, followed by a master's degree and a PhD from the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town.

Okech is the founding Director of the Feminist Centre for Racial Justice at SOAS University of London, which focuses on racial justice and feminist imaginaries rooted in the majority world.

She was a member of the editorial advisory board of Feminist Africa, a peer-reviewed journal from the African Gender Institute, based at the University of Ghana. Okech was also a member of the African Security Sector Network, a pan-African scholars and policy advocates network focused on security sector reform.

Selected publications Awino Okech & Shereen Essof & Laura Carlsen, (2022). Movement building responses to COVID-19: lessons from the JASS mobilisation fund, Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer; Fondazione Edison, vol. 39(1), pages 249–269, April. Protest and Power: Gender, State and Society in Africa (Editor): Palgrave Macmillan, 2020 'Boundary anxieties and infrastructures of violence: Somali identity in post-Westgate Kenya.' Third World Thematics: A TWQ Journal. pp. 1-17 (2018) Gendered security: Between ethno-nationalism and constitution making in Kenya (2013) Dealing with Asymmetrical Conflict: Lessons from Kenya (2015) Women and Security Governance in Africa, ed. Funmi Olonisakin & Awino Okech. Oxford: Pambazuka Press, 2011.