Person: Comaroff, John
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Comaroff
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Comaroff, John
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Publication The Point of Sharp Things(2013) Comaroff, Jean; Comaroff, JohnPublication Writing Theory from the South: The Global Order from an African Perspective(Exact Editions Ltd., 2013) Comaroff, Jean; Comaroff, JohnPublication Reflections on Liberalism(Taylor & Francis, 2003) Comaroff, John; Comaroff, JeanHow do nation-states in the twenty-first century, nation-states increasingly forced to come to terms with the ethnic heterogeneity of their citizens, deal with the problem of cultural difference? How, in particular, does the Constitution of post-apartheid South Africa — widely believed to be the most enlightened in the contemporary world, the most tolerant of diversity — strike a balance between the ‘One Law’ of ‘The Nation’ and the plurality of customary beliefs sustained, as a matter of right, by the various peoples who make up this postcolony? What happens, in the course of everyday existence, when Constitution and Custom appear to contradict one another — and to do so in such a manner as to raise questions of basic human rights, of freedom of belief, even of life-and-death? These questions are addressed in the paper through a critical, broadly situated analysis of the confrontation between the Constitution of South Africa and the Kingdom of Custom that continues to prevail in one of its provinces, the North West. By exploring a complicated case that drew the State, via its Human Rights Commission, into open conflict with a Tswana chiefdom—a case about death rituals argued, before a high court judge, in the lexicon of modern jurisprudence — it shows how a ‘living constitution’, tolerant of everyday ambiguity, is being forged in the space of strategic engagement opened up by the alternative languages and cultures of legality that exist in this ‘policultural’ postcolony. And in others like it.Publication Theory from the South: Or, how Euro-America is Evolving Toward Africa(Informa UK Limited, 2012-06-14) Comaroff, Jean; Comaroff, JohnPublication The Omnivorous Science: Jean and John Comaroff on the Politics of Anthropology, Capitalism, and Contemporary States(Antropólogos Iberoamericanos en Red (AIBR), 2012) Comaroff, Jean; Comaroff, John; Angosto Ferrandez, LuisFew social scientists reach the status of contemporary classics. Jean and John Comaroff are among those who could be included in that category. Their current work is indeed on the crest of the wave of social analysis, but at least since the 1980s it has been followed, debated, and also challenged within the field of anthropology. Beyond this disciplinary area, their work has resonated and continues to resonate in the spheres of sociology, politics and legal studies, in a clear demonstration of the strength and the potential of anthropological knowledge when it engages the 'big issues'. It is only a part of the written production of John and Jean Comaroff that has been translated into Spanish, but contemporary Spanish and Latin American anthropologists are familiar with many of their theoretical proposals. Here is an opportunity to gain insight into these proposals and into the views of the Comaroffs on the politics of anthropology, capitalism, and contemporary states. This interview was conducted in Sydney (Australia) on 08 May 2012. I should like to thank Jeremy Beckett for comments on the interview transcript.Publication Theory From the South: Or, How Europe is Evolving Toward Africa(Taylor & Francis, 2012) Comaroff, Jean; Comaroff, John‘The Global South’ has become a shorthand for the world of non-European, postcolonial peoples. Synonymous with uncertain development, unorthodox economies, failed states, and nations fraught with corruption, poverty, and strife, it is that half of the world about which the ‘Global North’ spins theories. Rarely is it seen as a source of theory and explanation for world historical events. Yet, as many nation-states of the Northern Hemisphere experience increasing fiscal meltdown, state privatization, corruption, and ethnic conflict, it seems as though they are evolving southward, so to speak, in both positive and problematic ways. Is this so? In what measure? What might this mean for the very dualism on which such global oppositions rest? Drawing on recent research, primarily in Africa, this paper touches on a range of familiar themes—law, labor, and the contours of contemporary capitalism—in order to ask how we might understand these things with theory developed from an ‘ex-centric’ vantage. This view renders some key problems of our time at once strange and familiar, giving an ironic twist to the evolutionary pathways long assumed by social scientists.Publication Theory From the South: A Rejoinder(2012) Comaroff, Jean; Comaroff, JohnPublication ‘Anthropologists Are Talking’: About Anthropology and Post-Apartheid South Africa(Informa UK (Taylor & Francis), 2012) Bangstad, Sindre; Eriksen, Thomas Hylland; Comaroff, John; Comaroff, JeanIn 2010, South Africa hosted the first World Cup in soccer ever to take place on the African continent. Twenty years after the fall of Apartheid, South Africa presents a series of fractured and contradictory images to the outside world. It is, on the one hand, an economic powerhouse in sub-Saharan Africa, but on the other hand a society in which socio-economic inequalities have continued to flourish and increase. What can anthropology tell us about contemporary South Africa? As part of an ongoing series in public anthropology, Professor Thomas Hylland Eriksen and Postdoctoral Fellow Sindre Bangstad sat down for a public conversation with Professors John L. and Jean Comaroff in The House of Literature in Oslo, Norway, on 28 September 2010.Publication Etnografia e imaginação histórica: Breve introdução sobre as relações entre antropologia e arte, desafios analíticos e (in)segurança(Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas - UNICAMP, 2010) Comaroff, John; Comaroff, JeanPublication “Law As . . .”: Theory and Practice in Legal History(UC Irvine Law Review, 2011) Tomlins, Christopher; Comaroff, John