Political Science Faculty

Leila C. Kawar

Biography

Dr. Leila Kawar's work has examined the politics of law and courts in a range of national and international contexts, with a particular focus on the intersection of legal expertise with issues of citizenship, borders, and immigration. She teaches courses in Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, and Law and Society. She is the Pre-Law advisor for the College of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Kawar holds a PhD from New York University's Institute for Law and Society and also has a graduate training in the field of Social Anthropology. In 2011-2012, she was the Jerome Hall Fellow at the Center for Law and Society at Indiana University Maurer School of Law. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Dr. Kawar’s research on the comparative politics of immigration law has been published in Law and Social Inquiry, International Migration Review, and Citizenship Studies.

Fields of Study

• Public Law
• Law and Society
• Migration and Citizenship

Education

• New York University, PhD
• London School of Economics, MSc in Social Anthropology

Selected Publications

• 2012 “Juridical Framings of Immigrants in the United States and France: Courts, Social
  Movements, and Symbolic Politics.” International Migration Review. Vol. 46, No. 2.
• 2011 “Finding a Place for Marginal Migrants in the International Human Rights System.”
  Studies in Law, Politics, and Society. Vol. 56, p. 67-90.
• 2011 “Legal Mobilization on the Terrain of the State: Immigrant Rights Practice in Two
  National Legal Fields.” Law & Social Inquiry. Vol. 36, No. 2.
• 2010 “Legality and [Dis]membership: Removal of Citizenship and the Creation of ‘Virtual
  Immigrants’.” Citizenship Studies. Vol. 14, No. 5.

Awards

• Harward Center for Community Partnerships, 2011 Best New Faculty Initiative (for Service Learning Course on Immigrant Rights)
• Bates College Publicly-Engaged Academic Projects Award

Grants

•  Law and Society Association, International Research Collaborative
• National Science Foundation, Dissertation Improvement Grant
• Lurcy Foundation Fellowship for Research in France
• French Ministry of Foreign Affairs Chateaubriand Fellowship

Presentations

• "Rethinking the Intersections between Law, State Culture & Religion in a Global World," Law, Politics, and Social Science Research: Future Directions in Comparative and International Approaches, NSF Workshop, 21-22 September 2012, Bainbridge Island, WA
• “Colonialism and the Right of Return,” American Political Science Association 2012 Annual Meeting, New Orleans
• "Commanding Legality: Administrative Review of Immigration Policies in a Civil Law
  Jurisdiction," Law and Society Association 2012 Annual Meeting, Honolulu

Invited Talks

• "Generating Labor Rights Through Creative Formalism: The ILO's Production of Decent
  Work for Domestic Workers," University of Wisconsin Law School, Madison, WI, 5 May 2012
• “Transnational Governance vs. Transnational Solidarity: Contemporary Struggles for
  Migrant Labor Rights.” Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, 6 May 2011
• "Sans-Papiers on Strike: Undocumented Migrants and Social Movements in France since
  the 1970s,” Central Connecticut State University. Hartford, CT, 24 February 2011

Projects

• "Comparative Legal Politics and the Soft Power of Law" Symposium co-organizer (with Mark Fathi Massoud, U.C. Santa Cruz)

Courses Taught

• Constitutional Law: Powers and Relationships
• Administrative Law
• Law and Society