John L. Comaroff

Since its initial 2011 publication, Theory from the South has stimulated a new field of inquiry from leading scholars, while world developments have escalated and supported its original thesis of how "Euroamerica has evolved toward Africa." Not least of these is the many resemblances of the Trump presidency to that of Jacob Zuma, transformations in the nature of many of the world’s Northern democracies, the rise of populist politics, the intensifying hold of private capital over functions of the state, sharpening inequalities, and the transformation of labor. In a new chapter for this expanded edition, the Comaroffs extend their theorizing around and beyond these new developments. Critique and discussion by several prominent commentators round out this new edition: Achille Mbembe, James Ferguson, Ato Quayson, Srinivas Aravamudan, and Juan Obarrio.

Since its initial 2011 publication, Theory from the South has stimulated a new field of inquiry from leading scholars, while world developments have escalated and supported its original thesis of how "Euroamerica has evolved toward Africa." Not least of these is the many resemblances of the Trump presidency to that of Jacob Zuma, transformations in the nature of many of the world’s Northern democracies, the rise of populist politics, the intensifying hold of private capital over functions of the state, sharpening inequalities, and the transformation of labor. In a new chapter for this expanded edition, the Comaroffs extend their theorizing around and beyond these new developments. Critique and discussion by several prominent commentators round out this new edition: Achille Mbembe, James Ferguson, Ato Quayson, Srinivas Aravamudan, and Juan Obarrio.

First published in 1953 and this edition in 1991, this book was created in association with the International African Institute. Since its first publication, anthropology and African Studies have changed a great deal, but the bedrock of both remains unchanged: solid, sensitive ethnographic and historical accounts of the peoples and cultures of the continent. Part One is by Isaac Schapera whose documentation of life and times in the Bechuanaland Protectorate stands as a starkly detailed chronical of an African population in a rapidly changing world. Schapera was one of the few anthropologists who spoke frankly of the rural predicament of rural Africans under colonialism. Far from describing the Tswana as a closed or timeless ‘society’, he locates the people in their political and economic context, and in so doing, has left behind an extraordinary record.This edition of The Tswana consists of the original text to which has been added a second part by John L. Comaroff, which covers the transformation of Tswana life in Botswana and South Africa 1953-85, plus a much enlarged bibliography. Together, the parts of the book make a valuable summary of an exceedingly rich and ethnographic and historical record that will continue to serve as an indispensable tool in research and teaching.

In this book, renowned anthropologists Jean and John L. Comaroff make a startling but absolutely convincing claim about our modern era: it is not by our arts, our politics, or our science that we understand ourselves it is by our crimes. Surveying an astonishing range of forms of crime and policing from petty thefts to the multibillion-dollar scams of too-big-to-fail financial institutions to the collateral damage of war they take readers into the disorder of the late modern world. Looking at recent transformations in the triangulation of capital, the state, and governance that have led to an era where crime and policing are ever more complicit, they offer a powerful meditation on the new forms of sovereignty, citizenship, class, race, law, and political economy of representation that have arisen. To do so, the Comaroffs draw on their vast knowledge of South Africa, especially, and its struggle to build a democracy founded on the rule of law out of the wreckage of long years of violence and oppression. There they explore everything from the fascination with the supernatural in policing to the extreme measures people take to prevent home invasion, drawing illuminating comparisons to the United States and United Kingdom. Going beyond South Africa, they offer a global criminal anthropology that attests to criminality as the constitutive fact of contemporary life, the vernacular by which politics are conducted, moral panics voiced, and populations ruled. The result is a disturbing but necessary portrait of the modern era, one that asks critical new questions about how we see ourselves, how we think about morality, and how we are going to proceed as a global society.

In this book, renowned anthropologists Jean and John L. Comaroff make a startling but absolutely convincing claim about our modern era: it is not by our arts, our politics, or our science that we understand ourselves it is by our crimes. Surveying an astonishing range of forms of crime and policing from petty thefts to the multibillion-dollar scams of too-big-to-fail financial institutions to the collateral damage of war they take readers into the disorder of the late modern world. Looking at recent transformations in the triangulation of capital, the state, and governance that have led to an era where crime and policing are ever more complicit, they offer a powerful meditation on the new forms of sovereignty, citizenship, class, race, law, and political economy of representation that have arisen. To do so, the Comaroffs draw on their vast knowledge of South Africa, especially, and its struggle to build a democracy founded on the rule of law out of the wreckage of long years of violence and oppression. There they explore everything from the fascination with the supernatural in policing to the extreme measures people take to prevent home invasion, drawing illuminating comparisons to the United States and United Kingdom. Going beyond South Africa, they offer a global criminal anthropology that attests to criminality as the constitutive fact of contemporary life, the vernacular by which politics are conducted, moral panics voiced, and populations ruled. The result is a disturbing but necessary portrait of the modern era, one that asks critical new questions about how we see ourselves, how we think about morality, and how we are going to proceed as a global society.

First published in 1953 and this edition in 1991, this book was created in association with the International African Institute. Since its first publication, anthropology and African Studies have changed a great deal, but the bedrock of both remains unchanged: solid, sensitive ethnographic and historical accounts of the peoples and cultures of the continent. Part One is by Isaac Schapera whose documentation of life and times in the Bechuanaland Protectorate stands as a starkly detailed chronical of an African population in a rapidly changing world. Schapera was one of the few anthropologists who spoke frankly of the rural predicament of rural Africans under colonialism. Far from describing the Tswana as a closed or timeless ‘society’, he locates the people in their political and economic context, and in so doing, has left behind an extraordinary record.This edition of The Tswana consists of the original text to which has been added a second part by John L. Comaroff, which covers the transformation of Tswana life in Botswana and South Africa 1953-85, plus a much enlarged bibliography. Together, the parts of the book make a valuable summary of an exceedingly rich and ethnographic and historical record that will continue to serve as an indispensable tool in research and teaching.

As nation-states in the Northern Hemisphere experience economic crisis, political corruption and racial tension, it seems as though they might be 'evolving' into the kind of societies normally associated with the 'Global South'. Anthropologists Jean and John Comaroff draw on their long experience of living in Africa to address a range of familiar themes - democracy, national borders, labour and capital and multiculturalism. They consider how we might understand these issues by using theory developed in the Global South. Challenging our ideas about 'developed' and 'developing' nations, Theory from the South provides new insights into key problems of our time.

As nation-states in the Northern Hemisphere experience economic crisis, political corruption and racial tension, it seems as though they might be 'evolving' into the kind of societies normally associated with the 'Global South'. Anthropologists Jean and John Comaroff draw on their long experience of living in Africa to address a range of familiar themes - democracy, national borders, labour and capital and multiculturalism. They consider how we might understand these issues by using theory developed in the Global South. Challenging our ideas about 'developed' and 'developing' nations, Theory from the South provides new insights into key problems of our time.

In "Ethnicity, Inc." anthropologists John L. and Jean Comaroff analyze a new moment in the history of human identity: its rampant commodification. Through a wide-ranging exploration of the changing relationship between culture and the market, they address a pressing question: Wherein lies the future of ethnicity? Their account begins in South Africa, with the incorporation of an ethno-business in venture capital by a group of traditional African chiefs. But their horizons are global: Native American casinos; Scotland's efforts to brand itself; a Zulu ethno-theme park named Shakaland; a world religion declared to be intellectual property; a chiefdom made into a global business by means of its platinum holdings; San 'Bushmen' with patent rights potentially worth millions of dollars; nations acting as commercial enterprises; and the rapid growth of marketing firms that target specific ethnic populations are just some of the diverse examples that fall under the Comaroffs' incisive scrutiny. These phenomena range from the disturbing through the intriguing to the absurd. Through them, the Comaroffs trace the contradictory effects of neoliberalism as it transforms identities and social being across the globe. "Ethnicity, Inc." is a penetrating account of the ways in which ethnic populations are remaking themselves in the image of the corporation - while corporations coopt ethnic practices to open up new markets and regimes of consumption. Intellectually rigorous but leavened with wit, this is a powerful, highly original portrayal of a new world being born in a tectonic collision of culture, capitalism, and identity.

In "Ethnicity, Inc." anthropologists John L. and Jean Comaroff analyze a new moment in the history of human identity: its rampant commodification. Through a wide-ranging exploration of the changing relationship between culture and the market, they address a pressing question: Wherein lies the future of ethnicity? Their account begins in South Africa, with the incorporation of an ethno-business in venture capital by a group of traditional African chiefs. But their horizons are global: Native American casinos; Scotland's efforts to brand itself; a Zulu ethno-theme park named Shakaland; a world religion declared to be intellectual property; a chiefdom made into a global business by means of its platinum holdings; San 'Bushmen' with patent rights potentially worth millions of dollars; nations acting as commercial enterprises; and the rapid growth of marketing firms that target specific ethnic populations are just some of the diverse examples that fall under the Comaroffs' incisive scrutiny. These phenomena range from the disturbing through the intriguing to the absurd. Through them, the Comaroffs trace the contradictory effects of neoliberalism as it transforms identities and social being across the globe. "Ethnicity, Inc." is a penetrating account of the ways in which ethnic populations are remaking themselves in the image of the corporation - while corporations coopt ethnic practices to open up new markets and regimes of consumption. Intellectually rigorous but leavened with wit, this is a powerful, highly original portrayal of a new world being born in a tectonic collision of culture, capitalism, and identity.

In the second of a proposed three-volume study, Jean and John Comaroff continue their exploration of colonial evangelism and modernity in South Africa. Moving beyond the opening moments of the encounter between the British Nonconformist missions and the Southern Tswana peoples, this volume explores the complex transactions - both epic and ordinary - among the people along this colonial frontier. The authors trace many of the major themes of 20th-century South African history back to these formative encounters. The relationship between the British evangelists and the Southern Tswana engendered complex exchanges of goods, signs, and cultural markers that shaped not only African existence but also bourgeois modernity "back home" in England. The book demonstrates how the colonial attempt to "civilize" Africa set in motion a dialectical process that refashioned the everyday lives of all those drawn into its purview, creating hybrid cultural forms and potent global forces which persist in the postcolonial age.

In the second of a proposed three-volume study, Jean and John Comaroff continue their exploration of colonial evangelism and modernity in South Africa. Moving beyond the opening moments of the encounter between the British Nonconformist missions and the Southern Tswana peoples, this volume explores the complex transactions - both epic and ordinary - among the people along this colonial frontier. The authors trace many of the major themes of 20th-century South African history back to these formative encounters. The relationship between the British evangelists and the Southern Tswana engendered complex exchanges of goods, signs, and cultural markers that shaped not only African existence but also bourgeois modernity "back home" in England. The book demonstrates how the colonial attempt to "civilize" Africa set in motion a dialectical process that refashioned the everyday lives of all those drawn into its purview, creating hybrid cultural forms and potent global forces which persist in the postcolonial age.

"Defining their enterprise as more in the direction of poetics than of prosaics, the Comaroffs free themselves to analyze a vivid series of images and events as objects of analysis. These they mine for clues to the 19th-century contents of the British imagination and of Tswana minds. They are themselves imagining the imagination of others, and they do the job with characteristic aplomb...The first volume creates an appetite for the second." Sally Falk Moore, "American Anthropologist"

"Defining their enterprise as more in the direction of poetics than of prosaics, the Comaroffs free themselves to analyze a vivid series of images and events as objects of analysis. These they mine for clues to the 19th-century contents of the British imagination and of Tswana minds. They are themselves imagining the imagination of others, and they do the job with characteristic aplomb...The first volume creates an appetite for the second." Sally Falk Moore, "American Anthropologist"

Rules and Processes is at once a compelling essay in social theory and a pathbreaking ethnography of dispute in an African society. On the basis of a sensitive study of the Tswana of southern Africa, John Comaroff and Simon Roberts challenge most of the orthodoxies of legal anthropology. They argue that the social world, and the dispute processes that occur within it, are given form and meaning by a dialectical relationship between sociocultural structures and individual experience. The authors explore in a novel way the relations between culture and ideology, system and practice, social action and human intention. They develop a model that lays bare the form and content of legal and political discourse in all its variations--a model that accounts for the outcome of conflict processes and explains why the Tswana, like people in other cultures, conceive of their world in an apparently contradictory manner--as rule-governed yet inherently open to pragmatic individualism; orderly yet inherently fluid and shifting. Rules and Processes offers a fresh and persuasive approach to our understanding of the dialectics of social life. A work of impressive scholarship in which theoretical sophistication and ethnographic richness are convincingly matched.--Ian Hamnett, Times Higher Education Supplement.