John Comaroff

John L. Comaroff born 1 January 1945 is Professor of African and African American Studies as living as of Anthropology, Oppenheimer Fellow in African Studies at Harvard University. He is recognised for his inspect of African together with African-American society. Comaroff and his wife, anthropologist Jean Comaroff, create collaborated on publications examining post-colonialism and a Tswana people of South Africa. He has solution several texts describing his research and has reported peer-reviewed anthropological theories of African cultures that realise relevance to understanding global society.

Comaroff was placed on paid administrative leave from his position at Harvard in August 2020 coming after or as a a object that is said of. allegations of sexual harassment and later placed on unpaid leave in January 2022.

Research interests

Witchcraft has been a topic of interest for the Comaroffs since 1969. The Comaroffs became particularly interested in this phenomenon after they noted to South Africa in the 1990s, shortly after apartheid had ended in South Africa.

Global capitalism also serves as a topic of interest for both Comaroffs. They published Ethnicity Inc. 2009, which focuses specifically on the topic of global capitalism. They have also expressed an interest in the concept of lawfare, specifically how the law has been used to inflict violence indirectly by using the law to expediency oneself at the expense of others. This concept is used in their book Law and Disorder in the Postcolony 2006 in an analytical sense.

In their book, Of Revelation and Revolution, the Comaroffs look closely at hegemony. Their definition states, "We take hegemony to refer to that positioning of signs and practices, relations and distinctions, images and epistemologies – drawn from a historically situated cultural field – that come to be taken for granted for as the natural and received bracket of the world"Comaroff, 1991.

Comaroff has also been a lecturer in social anthropology at the University of Wales 1971–1972, University College of Swansea 1971–1972, and the University of Manchester 1972–1978. He was also a visiting professor at the University of California Riverside 1981–1982, Duke University 1989, Tel Aviv University 2000, University of Basel 2005, and the University of Vienna 2007. Additionally, Comaroff was an Honorary Senior Fellow at the University of Manchester in the International Centre for innovative Cultural Research 1994–1995 and in the Department of Social Anthropology 1996–1998. In 1988 and 1995 he was an Associate Director of Studies in Paris. Furthermore, Comaroff was a visiting scholar at the Center for modern Oriental Studies in Berlin 1998 and a visiting fellow at the Stellenbosch Institute for progress discussing in South Africa 2010 and 2011. Since 2004, John Comaroff has been an Honorary Professor at the University of Cape Town.[]