Leigh Swigart
Abraham Shapiro Academic Complex
The International Center for Ethics, Justice, and public Life
Sustainable International Development Program
P.O. Box 549110, MS 086
Waltham, MA 02454-9110
(781) 736-2694
swigart@brandeis.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
International justice and human rights. Linguistic anthropology. African urban speech varieties. New immigration in the USA. Refugee studies.
Background and Description
Leigh Swigart, Director of Programs in International Justice and Society, oversees programs that touch on the work of international judicial institutions and human rights organizations. These programs include the Brandeis Institute for International Judges and Know Your Rights!, an initiative that aims to translate fundamental human right treaties into African languages for their broad dissemination to local populations.
Leigh received her undergraduate degree in anthropology from Smith College (1980) and both her Masters (1985) and Ph.D. (1992) degrees in sociocultural anthropology from the University of Washington, Seattle. Her research and publications have focused on the international judiciary, language use in post-colonial Africa, and recent African immigration and refugee resettlement in the United States. She has wide experience in international education, including tenure as director of the West African Research Center in Dakar, Senegal, and has worked in the field of international literacy and indigenous language promotion. Leigh is a two-time Fulbright Scholar and recipient of the Wenner-Gren Foundation Fellowship for Anthropological Research.
Her dissertation work focused on the urban linguistic code spoken in Dakar, Senegal, a "mixture" of French and Wolof whose use signals complex sociolinguistic information. Leigh lived for six years in Dakar in the 1980's and 90's and as a result became herself an enthusiastic speaker of Urban Wolof. She has published articles on this phenomenon is a variety of journals, including Africa and the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. Leigh then shifted her research focus to African immigrants in the United States. She carried out the ethnographic work for and curated an exhibit on this topic for the Balch Institute in Philadelphia, entitled "Extended Lives: the African Immigrant Experience in Philadelphia." Since arriving at Brandeis, she has turned her attention to the international judiciary. She is co-author of a book entitled The International Judge: an Introduction to the Men and Women who Decide the World's Cases (forthcoming, University Press of New England).
Leigh is married, has two sons, is always ready to learn a new language, loves early and world music of all kinds, and is passionate about dancing.