I have been the recipient of several grants, scholarships, and fellowships (from the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Birmingham, the Bureau de l’égalité from the University of Lausanne, the Swiss National Science Foundation, the University of Lausanne, the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, the Confédération Helvétique, the Spanish Government) and of three awards for my academic work:

2023 SHF + Cultural Studies Award, in recognition for my article ‘SoHo as virtual theatre: performing gender, race, and class in 21st-century Colombia’ which was published in Cultural Studies vol. 36, no. 1 (January 2022).

‘It was difficult to decide the winner of the SHF x Cultural Studies Award this year, because all shortlisted papers ably combined advanced theoretical understanding with an interesting empirical-contextual focus. However, for its notable liveliness and ‘hybrid’ blending of ‘Hallian’ cultural studies and Colombian cultural politics, we selected Isis Giraldo’s article to be awarded.

This paper understands the ideological significance of one specific cultural artefact/project as a ‘virtual theatre’ through which many facets of its Colombian social context are displayed and condensed. The article offers a range of illuminating observations; it is also theoretically bold. The importance of the Latin American ‘coloniality of power’ framework is acknowledged, yet the author registers some reservations too, more generally pressing the continuing importance of Birmingham-style cultural studies, especially its gender dimension (in close conjunction with race and class). An energetic and engaging study.’

Prix de Faculté 2017, Faculté de Lettres, Université de Lausanne for my doctoral thesis.

‘Pour la qualité de sa thèse et sa capacité à élaborer des questionnements théoriques à l’imbrication du féminisme dans la culture globalisée contemporaine afin de comprendre, à partir du cas de la Colombie, comment se constituent aujourd’hui les normes symboliques qui déterminent notre vision quotidienne du monde et la banalisation des inégalités de sexe et de race.’

2016 Feminist Theory Essay Prize for my article ‘Coloniality at Work: Decolonial Critique and the Postfeminist Regime.’

‘This outstanding essay deals with issues of representation in original 2018 ways and also addresses issues of central importance to feminism. Giraldo makes a telling contribution to the project of decentring ‘western’ theory, the most important task we face in taking feminist theory forward. She goes beyond many other contributions to this enterprise, not only bringing Latin American theory into dialogue with that produced in Europe or North America, but bringing it to bear on European and North American cultural phenomena, thereby reversing the usual direction in which theory travels. The central concept developed and applied to Femen and pop icons — the coloniality of gender — has huge potential for application elsewhere. Giraldo discusses ideas that could make a significant difference in setting new agendas for feminist theory.’