51ÁÔÆæ

Prof. Dr. Catherine Whittaker


Tel: +49 (0)69/798-33070
Room: IG 554
Email: Whittaker (at) em.uni-frankfurt.de 
Appointments: By announcement and individual appointment


Research and teaching interests

• Latin America (especially rural Central Mexico), U.S.-Mexico border region (particularly urban California), transnational perspectives; 
• Anthropology of security (including vigilance), militarization, and structural violence (including gender-based violence) as well as peacebuilding, healing, and love;
• Women's, migrants' and racialized subjects' activism, power, and subjectivation;
• Feminist, indigenous, and decolonial theories and methods, affect theory; 
• Ethnographic writing


Short biography

I am an Assistant Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the 51ÁÔÆæ Frankfurt (W1, tenure track) and head of department. I am also on the editorial board of the journal Feminist Anthropology

Previously, I was a research associate at the SFB 1369 "Cultures of Vigilance" at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and at the Centre for Citizenship, Civil Society and Rule of Law (CISRUL) at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. I have also been a visiting scholar at Brown University (Providence, RI, U.S.A.), the University of California San Diego and the National University of Mexico (UNAM) and completed my graduate studies at the University of Edinburgh, the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), the University of Oxford (all Anthropology, UK), and the University of Bonn (Latin American and Indigenous American Studies, Germany).

Previous ethnographic research projects on structures of violence

2022-2023: Rethinking masculine capital: militarization, care, and awkward affects (funded by the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung and the Johanna Quandt Young Academy).

2019-2023: The vigilance and subjectivity of Latin@s and those mistaken for migrants in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands (DFG-funded, project director: Prof. Dr. Eveline Dürr, LMU Munich).

2019: Gender roles in anti-violence activism in Michoacán, Mexico (ESRC-funded, project director: Dr. Trevor Stack, University of Aberdeen).

2014-2019: Indigenous women's power, the relationship between love and violence, and the politics of indigeneity in the rural south of Mexico City (funded by the University of Edinburgh, the Mexican government's Fellowship Program for Foreign Scholars, and the Royal Anthropological Institute).

Publications

      Monographs
    • . DeGruyter, 2023 (with Eveline Dürr, Jonathan Alderman und Carolin Luiprecht) Download-link (Open Access)
    • . DeGruyter, 2023 (with Eveline Dürr et al.)
    • Love Within Violence: Paradoxes of Gender Violence and Coloniality in Mexico (manuscript in progress)

    Special Sections
    • 2024 - â€œ." Co-edited with Antje Gunsenheimer and Stephanie Schütze, Indiana 41.1.
    • 2022 - “." Co-edited with Eveline Dürr and Ana Ivasiuc, Conflict & Society

    Peer-reviewed Journal Articles
    • 2024 - ".“&²Ô²ú²õ±è;Conflict and Society (With Eveline Dürr)
    • 2024 - „.“ Indiana 41.1: 9-23. (With Antje Gunsenheimer and Stephanie Schütze.)
    • 2023 - American Anthropologist
    • 2022 - Conflict & Society (With Eveline Dürr.)
    • 2022 -  “." Sociologus (With Jonathan Alderman and Eveline Dürr.)
    • 2022 - “." Conflict & Society (With Ana Ivasiuc and Eveline Dürr.)
    • 2021 - “." Annals of Anthropological Practice 44(2): 173-179.
    • 2020 - “" Feminist Anthropology 1(2): 288-303. 
    • 2016 - “." Mexicon: Journal of Mesoamerican Studies 38(2): 33-35.

    Book Chapters (*peer-reviewed)
    • 2024 - " [Knowledge and vigilance against racist and colonialist violence in the Mexico-U.S. borderlands],“ in  [Knowledge, Power, and Digital Transformation in Latin America], edited by P. Birle and A. Windus. Berlin: Iberoamericana-Verveurt, pp. 113-124.
    • 2023 - ," in Zeiten der Wachsamkeit [Times of Watchfulness], ed. by A. Brendecke et al. DeGruyter. (With Eveline Dürr.)
    • 2023* - “Los límites del activismo de las mujeres michoacanas: luchando contra el continuo de violencia [Barriers to women's activism in Michoacán: Struggling against the continuum of violence]," in Sociedad civil desde la periferia: Un estudio sobre las respuestas y dilemas de la sociedad frente a la violencia y la fragilidad institucional" [Civil Society From the Margins: A study of the answers and dilemmas of society in the face of violence and institutional fragility], ed. by E. Guerra. Aguascalientes: Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas. (In print.)
    • 2022* - “," in Researching Gender-based Violence: Embodied and Intersectional Approaches, ed. by A. Petillo and H. Hlavka, New York City: New York University Press.
    • 2022* - “A Room of Their Own: Barriers to women's activism against the continuum of violence in Michoacán, Mexico," in Citizens Against Crime and Violence: A Comparative Ethnography of Societal Responses in Michoacán, Mexico, ed. by T. Stack, New Brunswick: Rutgers UP. Preview:
    • 2019 - “The cosmopolitics of rights and violence in Central Mexico," in Anthropological contributions for sustainable futures: Research and interventions in the fields of environmental needs, gender equity, human rights and knowledge in South America and the United Kingdom, ed. by S. Alzugaray and J. Taks, pp. 12-15. Montevideo: University of the Republic of Uruguay Press. 
    • 2017 - “Suckling the snake: Motherly goddess worship and serpent symbolism among contemporary Nahua," in Motherhood/s and polytheism, ed. by G. Pedrucci, F. Pasche Guignard, and M. Scapini, pp. 495-504. Bologna: Pàtron.

   Scientific Blogs (selection)

  • .
Team
Student assistant: Elizabeth Schierhold

PhD supervisees: Akemi Matsumura Vásquez, Mathias Hartmann, Desta Lorenso Girma