Professor
Alfred North Whitehead Research Professor of Anthropology and African and African American Studies, Harvard University
Newsworthy
`Uncanny Returns
Jean Comaroff Forthcoming in “Alternative Rationalities and Esoteric Practices.” (eds) Raquel Romberg, Andea Nehring, Brill. l. Liberal modern personhood presumes a coherent, indivisible subject. Yet
Tiny Homes, Unreal Estate, and the Precarious Politics of Housing
The Case of the Wendy House Jean Comaroff Housing is the social issue of the twenty-first, claimed Jon Henley in The Guardian in May 2024.i
The Dis/appearing Body of Labor.
The laboring body is a curious thing. In the modern sense of homo faber, it enacts the psycho-physical activity through which humans produce their modes
African Masculinities in Question
Is masculinity the inevitable consequence of being male? Scholars and journalists report that in Africa today masculinity is widely in distress, with a growing proportion of young men struggling to gain access to the social and material means needed to marry, found families, and secure recognition as adult men. Yet patriarchal authority persists in many parts of the continent, along with alarming claims of an increase in “rogue,” “toxic,” and hyper-masculinities associated with gender-based violence, crime, and militarism. In order to comprehend this paradoxical picture, we must push past populist stereotypes to examine the interplay of gender, culture, and political economy that underlies the lives of men – and women – in Africa today.
Interview with Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff
Between 1976 and 2010, Alan Macfarlane, a professor in the Department of Sociology at Cambridge University, conducted a series of interviews with anthropologists from around
Lecture: On Vigilantism Resurrected
Anthropological Explorations of Violent Transfigurations of State, Crime and Politics across Contexts