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​Humboldt  Fellow

Dr. Leila Whitley

am Schwerpunkt Kultur und Migration

Institut für Soziologie

Fachbereich 03 Gesellschaftswissenschaften

Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main

Theodor-W.-Adorno Platz 6

Campus-Westend – PEG-Gebäude

Hauspost 56

60323 Frankfurt am Main

E-Mail: Whitley@em.uni-frankfurt.de






Leila Whitley works in the area of cultural studies, particularly on questions of migration, representation, (post)national belonging, and race and gender. Since 2018 she has been based in the Critical Gender Studies program at the University of California, San Diego. Prior to this appointment, she was a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the Zukunftskolleg of the University of Konstanz. Her work has appeared in journals such as Social Text, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, and Borderlands, amongst others.



At Goethe-Univeristät Frankfurt, Dr. Whitley is completing a Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers. Her project investigates how sexual violence has been represented in public discourse in the context of the 2015/16 European “migrant crisis" and since. It asks how these representations construct ideas of European belonging through reference to sexual violence, and how in turn this discourse contributes to constructing European borders through reference to gender.


2025 – present

Humboldt Experienced Research Fellow, Institute of Sociology, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany


2018- present

Lecturer/Continuing Lecturer, Critical Gender Studies, University of California, San Diego, US


2016-2018

Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow, Zukunftskolleg, University of Konstanz, Germany


2015-16

Visiting Research Fellow, Centre for Feminist Research, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK


2012-2016

Associate Lecturer, Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK


2015 

PhD Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK



  • Cultural Studies.
  • Migration and Border Studies.
  • Gender Studies and Queer Theory.
  • Critical Race Theory and Decolonial Theory.
  • Politics of Representation.
  • Whitley, L. (2023) Images of Mediterranean Crossing, Social Text. 41(4): 61-82.


  • Whitley, L. (2022). Narratives of Harm: Accounts and Displacements of Sexual Harassment in Institutional Space. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 47(2): 347-369.


  • Whitley, L., Page, T., & Corble, A. (2021). Collective Conclusions. In Complaint!, by Sara Ahmed (261-273). Durham: Duke University Press.


  • Carastathis, A., Kouri-Towe, N., Mahrouse, G. & Whitley, L. (2018). Introduction: Intersectional Feminist Interventions in the 'Refugee Crisis'. Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees 34(1): 3-15.


  • Editor of Special Issue: Carastathis, A., Kouri-Towe, N., Mahrouse, G.* & Whitley, L. (2018). Introduction: Intersectional Feminist Interventions in the 'Refugee Crisis'. Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees 34(1).


  • Whitley, L. (2017). The Disappearance of Race: A Critique of the Use of Agamben in Border and Migration Scholarship. Borderlands journal 16(1): 1-23. 


  • Whitley, L., & Page, T. (2015). Sexism at the Centre: Locating the Problem of Sexual Harassment. New Formations 86: 34-53.

  • Whitley, L. (2015). The Body as Border? Using Arizona's SB1070 to Rethink the Spatiality of the US-Mexico Border. Central European Journal of International and Security Studies9(3): 23-41.


2025 – present

Humboldt Experienced Research Fellow, Institute of Sociology, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany


2018- present

Lecturer/Continuing Lecturer, Critical Gender Studies, University of California, San Diego, US


2016-2018

Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow, Zukunftskolleg, University of Konstanz, Germany


2015-16

Visiting Research Fellow, Centre for Feminist Research, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK


2012-2016

Associate Lecturer, Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK


2015 

PhD Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK



  • Cultural Studies.
  • Migration and Border Studies.
  • Gender Studies and Queer Theory.
  • Critical Race Theory and Decolonial Theory.
  • Politics of Representation.
  • Whitley, L. (2023) Images of Mediterranean Crossing, Social Text. 41(4): 61-82.


  • Whitley, L. (2022). Narratives of Harm: Accounts and Displacements of Sexual Harassment in Institutional Space. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 47(2): 347-369.


  • Whitley, L., Page, T., & Corble, A. (2021). Collective Conclusions. In Complaint!, by Sara Ahmed (261-273). Durham: Duke University Press.


  • Carastathis, A., Kouri-Towe, N., Mahrouse, G. & Whitley, L. (2018). Introduction: Intersectional Feminist Interventions in the 'Refugee Crisis'. Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees 34(1): 3-15.


  • Editor of Special Issue: Carastathis, A., Kouri-Towe, N., Mahrouse, G.* & Whitley, L. (2018). Introduction: Intersectional Feminist Interventions in the 'Refugee Crisis'. Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees 34(1).


  • Whitley, L. (2017). The Disappearance of Race: A Critique of the Use of Agamben in Border and Migration Scholarship. Borderlands journal 16(1): 1-23. 


  • Whitley, L., & Page, T. (2015). Sexism at the Centre: Locating the Problem of Sexual Harassment. New Formations 86: 34-53.

  • Whitley, L. (2015). The Body as Border? Using Arizona's SB1070 to Rethink the Spatiality of the US-Mexico Border. Central European Journal of International and Security Studies9(3): 23-41.

Current Research Project

Sexual Violence and the Gendered Borders of Europe

This project investigates how sexual violence has been represented in public discourse in the context of the 2015/16 European “migrant crisis” and since. It asks how and whether these representations construct ideas of European belonging through reference to sexual violence, and how in turn this discourse might contribute to constructing European borders through reference to gender. The project therefore offers (1) a systematic study of the period of the so-called migration crisis, and the depiction of sexual violence in relation to migration in this period, (2) a thorough analysis of the role of public discourse that specifically attends to the effect at the European level, querying the role of this discourse in shaping notions of identity and belonging, and (3) a novel intersectional theorization of the production of European borders centering the question of gender that contributes to cutting-edge work in border studies.


Funding: Experienced Researcher Fellowship, Humboldt Foundation

Previous Major Research Projects

Migrant Figures: Discourse, Policy and Racialised Bodies (Postdoctoral work)

This project followed the figure of the migrant produced through representations of the tragedies in the Mediterranean, askinghow the understandings of migrant identity produced in this space informs the relocation of borders throughout the EU. Specifically, the project examined the ways that while a particular spectacle of migration may depict the borders of the EU as existing in a territorially external space, this same spectacle also allows for these borders to move inward, attaching themselves to a certain figure of migrant “illegality.”The project worked to further develop theorisations of bordering by drawing on feminist and critical race scholarship.


Funding: Marie Curie and Zukunftskolleg Incoming Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Konstanz


More Than a Line: Borders as Embodied Sites (PhD thesis)
This project examined what borders do and how and where they are experienced. In
particular, I queried how bodies come to be mobilized as sites of borders and
border policing. Departing from the US-Mexico border, the project contributed to a theory of the border that accounts for the ways bodies are regulated by borders, not only at the sites nominally recognized as "border," but throughout and beyond national space. Instead of being site limited, I argue borders are enacted in relation to embodiment, challenging universalisingaccounts of borders by attending to the ways borders differentially address bodies.


Funding: International Postgraduate Research Scholarship, Goldsmiths, University of London

Research Grant for Junior Academics, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), 2012