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Ash De Visser ( She/Her )

PhD Candidate (Legal Studies)


Ash De Visser is a PhD candidate in Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University. Originally from a small horse farm in British Columbia, Ash earned a BA from the University of Edinburgh and an MA from Simon Fraser University. With a background in political science and terrorism studies, Ash shifted toward legal anthropology after moving to Mexico in 2020.

Her doctoral research is an ethnographic study of gambling rings in coastal Mexico as sites of legal ambiguity and subaltern publics, examining how law is negotiated, performed, and contested in everyday life. She focuses on small-town settings where state authority meets local practice and is also interested in gentrification, neoliberal reform, deportation, and vaquero culture.

Research Interests

Ethnography; Legal Pluralism; Gambling;  Subaltern Publics; Everyday Law; Selective Policing and State Authority; Mexico; Deportation

Teaching Interests

Political Philosophy; Legal Anthropology; Ethnography; Mexican Studies. Current TA Position is Canadian Law, State, and Constitution. Volunteers in Nayarit to increase access to education and teach literacy. 

Supervisor

Dr. Hollis Moore

Publications

2021 ‘Appealing to Women’s Obligations to Join the Caliphate: Content Analysis of IS’ English Language Magazine Dabiq’ in Journal of Military and Security Studies, 20(4), 104-148.

Selected Presentations

De Visser, A. (2025, May). Navigating Post-Deportation: Ethnographic Insights into Reintegration, Language, and Identity in Small-Town Mexico at Carleton University’s Graduate Legal Studies Student Association (GLSA) 18th Annual Conference Sociolegal Inquiries in Our Global Unknown in Ottawa, Ontario.