Vita
Julia Leser is a Senior Researcher in the Research Area Societal Peace and Internal Security at the IFSH. Previously, she was a Research Fellow at the Collaborative Research Centre "Dynamics of Security" at Marburg University and a Postdoctoral Researcher at Humboldt University Berlin, where she coordinated the transnational research project "Challenging Populist Truth-Making in Europe” funded by Volkswagen Foundation. She completed her PhD in 2019 at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Leipzig with a state-theoretical and ethnographically grounded study of policing practices in the context of human trafficking and migration control. Further positions included the BMBF project “Strangers in their own Land?", the BMBF project “Beyond the Glass Ceiling", and the DFG/ANR research project “Institutionalising Human Trafficking". Research stays took her to the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, the Hannah Arendt Institute in Dresden, and the University of St Andrews in Scotland.
Research profile
Julia Leser researches far-right politics, internal security, and democratic transformation processes in Germany and Europe. A central focus lies on far-right extremist and populist actors in the fields of security, cultural, and environmental policy, their narratives and emotional dynamics, and their interactions with state institutions. A second focus concerns institutions of internal security – particularly the police – and their role in orders of power and violence. As a co-founder of the DVPW working group "Ethnographic Methods in Political Science", she is committed to the methodological development of interpretive approaches in the social sciences.
- Far-right politics in Germany and Europe
- Internal security, policing, and state institutions
- Democratic transformation and societal polarization
- Narratives and emotional dynamics in far-right politics
- Interpretive, ethnographic, and collaborative methods
Memberships & professional activities
- Co-convenor of the DVPW Working Group "Ethnographic Methods in Political Science"
- Member of the DFG Research Network "Qualitative Studies of Public Opinion: Understanding the Crises of Democratic Politics"
Selected Publications
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Leser, Julia,
ed.
2025.
Nationale Narrative in Zeiten gesellschaftlicher Spaltung. Empirische Einsichten und Perspektiven für die Politische Bildung.
Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-658-48064-6.
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Johais, Eva,
Julia Leser,
Katarina Kušić,
Kristin Anabel Eggeling,
André Weißenfels,
Andreas Streinzer,
Ryan Davey,
Johanna Kocks,
Felix Anderl,
Lena Merkle,
Anna Leander. 2024.
Forum: Critical Ethnography.
Public Anthropologist 6 (1): 125-199. Leiden: Brill.
DOI: 10.1163/25891715-06010003.
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Ahmann, Chloe,
Mona Bhan,
Alexandra Coțofană,
Radhika Govindrajan,
Julia Leser,
Zeynep Oguz,
Yuka Suzuki,
Noah Theriault. 2025.
Weaponizing Nature, Naturalizing Violence: Anthropologies of Ecofascism.
American Anthropologist
128 (1): 224-236.
DOI: 10.1111/aman.70043.
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Leser, Julia,
Alice Millar,
Marlena Nikody,
Pia Schramm. 2025.
Right-Wing Populism and Museums: Findings from an Interview Study in the UK, Poland and Germany.
Museum & Society
23 (2): 109-125.
DOI: 10.29311/mas.v23i2.4526.
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Pates, Rebecca,
Julia Leser. 2021.
The Wolves are Coming Back. The Politics of Fear in Eastern Germany..
Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Media/News
