Home
  • E-mailbruce.kapferer@uib.no
  • Visitor Address
    Fosswinckels gate 6
    Lauritz Meltzers hus
    5007 Bergen
  • Postal Address
    Postboks 7802
    5020 Bergen

Born: Sydney, Australia

Education: B.A. University of Sydney 1963, PhD University of Manchester 1969

Academic Positions: Commonwealth Scholar & Research Affiliate, Rhodes Livingstone Institute (later Institute For African Studies), Zambia 1963-1966; Lecturer, Senior Lecturer , University of Manchester 1966-1973; Foundation Professor, University of Adelaide 1973-1985; Professor, University College London 1985 -1996; Foundation Professor, James Cook University 1996 - 1999, Professor, University of Bergen 1999 to date.

Kapferer has held Fellowships at Center For Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, Palo Alto; Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies, Wassenaar; Institute For Advanced Studies, Hebrew University; and Centre for Cultural Research, Aarhus. He has held posts of Visiting Professor at University of California, Los Angeles; University of Stockholm; University of Copenhagen, and University of Goteborg.

Fieldwork: Zambia (rural Bisa, miners and commercial workers) 1963-1966; Sri Lanka (Buddhist healing rites, nationalism and violence) 1972 and continuing; Australia (Australian Aborigines, White Australian nationalism, state forms) 1974 to date; Globalisation (specific reference to Sri Lanka, Kerala (India), South Africa) 1998 to date.

Current research: Ritual and the structure of healing among Sinhalese Buddhists. A major concern is with the theory of ritual. Comparative research is being conducted among teyyam specialists in northern Kerala. A major current concern is in the dynamics of ancient and modern state forms with particular reference to contemporary global processes. Comparative research is being conducted in India, Sri Lanka, South Africa and in Australia with particular attention to nationalism, violence, shifts in bureuacratic and corporate structures, NGOs etc.

 

 

 

 

 

Academic article
  • Show author(s) (2022). An Introduction to Egalitarian Thought and Dynamics. Social Analysis: The International Journal of Anthropology. 1-21.
  • Show author(s) (2019). Crisis and communitas: Victor Turner and social process. Anthropology Today. 1-2.
  • Show author(s) (2018). What is analysis? Between theory, ethnography, and method. Social Analysis: The International Journal of Anthropology. 1-30.
  • Show author(s) (2018). From the Outside In. Anthropology as a Dialectic of Unsettlement. Social Analysis: The International Journal of Anthropology. 27-30.
  • Show author(s) (2018). A Nail in the Coffin. Arena Magazine.
  • Show author(s) (2017). The Cuckoo in the Nest. Arena Magazine. 31-34.
  • Show author(s) (2017). Ideas on Populism. Arena Magazine. 31-34.
  • Show author(s) (2016). Comment on Joel Robbins "What is the matter with transcendence? On the place of religion in the new anthropology of ethics". Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 790-795.
  • Show author(s) (2014). A Note on Gluckman’s 1930s Fieldwork in Natal. History in Africa. 147-154.
  • Show author(s) (2013). Ritual Practice and Anthropological Theory inReligion and Society: Advances in Research. Religion and Society: Advances in Research. 3-11.
  • Show author(s) (2013). How anthropologists think: configurations of the exotic. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 813-836.
  • Show author(s) (2011). Strathern's new comparative anthropology: thoughts from Hagen and Zambia. Common Knowledge. 104-110.
  • Show author(s) (2010). The aporia of power. Crisis and the emergence of the corporate state. Social Analysis: The International Journal of Anthropology. 125-151.
  • Show author(s) (2010). In the event. Towards an anthropology of generic moments. Social Analysis: The International Journal of Anthropology. 1-30.
  • Show author(s) (2010). Beyond Ritual as Performance. Towards Ritual as Dynamics and Virtuality. Paragrana. Internationale Zeitschrift für Historische Anthropologie. 231-249.
  • Show author(s) (2009). Religiosities toward a Future-in Pursuit of the New Millennium. Social Analysis: The International Journal of Anthropology. 1-16.
  • Show author(s) (2008). Comment: Interrogating the new-pluralist orthodoxy in American Anthropology A new ethnography of the state? Dialectical Anthropology. 93-95.
  • Show author(s) (2008). Beyond Symbolic Representation: Victor Turner and Variations on the Themes of Ritual Process and Liminality. Suomen Antropologi. 5-24.
  • Show author(s) (2007). Anthropology and the dialectic of enlightenment: A discourse on the definition and ideals of a threatened discipline. The Australian Journal of Anthropology. 72-96.
  • Show author(s) (2005). New Formations of Power, the oligarchic corporate state and anthropological discourse. Anthropological Theory. 285-299.
  • Show author(s) (2005). In positions to do great Damage: A comment on the Cushman, Denich, Hayden and Wilson debate Anthropological Theory Vol.5(4): 577-581. Anthropological Theory. 577-581.
  • Show author(s) (2004). Democracy, Wild Sovereignties and The New Leviathan. Bulletin of the Royal Institute of Inter-Faith Studies. 23-38.
  • Show author(s) (2003). The Australian Society of the State. Social Analysis: The International Journal of Anthropology. 80-107.
  • Show author(s) (2003). Injustice, Suffering and the State: Sorcery and renewal in Contemporary Sri Lanka. Bulletin of the Royal Institute of Inter-Faith Studies. 25 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2002). Ethnicity, Nationalism and the Culture of the State. Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society. 4-23.
  • Show author(s) (2001). Star Wars. About anthropology, culture and globalisation. Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society. 2-29.
  • Show author(s) (2001). Sorcery and the Shapes of Globalization. Disjunctions and Continuities- the case of Sri Lanka. Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society. 4-28.
  • Show author(s) (2001). Globalization, The State and Civil Violence in Sri Lanka. Bulletin of the Royal Institute of Inter-Faith Studies. 59-111.
  • Show author(s) (2001). Ethnic Nationalism and the Discourses of Violence in Sri Lanka. Communal Plural. 33-67.
  • Show author(s) (2001). Comment on "Random Mind: Towards an Appreciation of Openness in Individual, Society and Anthropology" by Nigel Rapport. The Australian Journal of Anthropology. 212-214.
  • Show author(s) (2001). Anthropology. The paradox of the secular. Social Anthropology. 341-344.
  • Show author(s) (2000). The Sorcery of Consciousness: A Sinhala Buddhist Ritual Dicourse on the Dynamics of Consciousness. Communication and Cognition. 97-120.
  • Show author(s) (2000). Star Wars: About Anthropology, Cultue and Globalization. The Australian Journal of Anthropology. 1-25.
  • Show author(s) (2000). Sexuality and the Art of Seduction in Sinhala Exorcism. Ethnos. 5-32.
Academic lecture
  • Show author(s) (2017). “What is Populism?”. Keynote lecture given at «Populism in Theory: towards an Anthropological frame». Conference jointly organized by the ERC Grassroots Economics (GRECO) project, University of Barcelona and the ERC Egalitarianism: Forms, Processes, Comparisons project, University of Bergen. 10-12 January 2017.
  • Show author(s) (2016). «Egalitarian Paradox and Hierarchical Intimacy». Keynote lecture presented at opening conference of «Gender and Cultures of Equality» opening conference, 11 May 2016, The Guildhall, Kingston-Upon-Hill, University of Hull.
  • Show author(s) (2016). "Technology, egalitarianism and society: An introduction". Opening paper given at the workshop "New Technologies and their Social Impact". Workshop organized by Rolf Scott and Bruce Kapferer, University of Bergen, in London, 10.-11. November 2016.
  • Show author(s) (2016). "Foundational Hierarchy and Egalitarian Paradox". Paper presented at workshop “Hierarchy, Egalitarianism & Responsibility”, 13-14 May 2016, Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), University of Cambridge.
  • Show author(s) (2015). "Charlie Hebdo and state reaction". Paper given at the workshop "Authoritarianism and Religiosity", 12.-13. November 2015, organized by Roshan DeSilva Wijeyeratne and Graeme Were, University of Queensland.
  • Show author(s) (2015). "Anthropological Issues in Deleuze on Modernity". Keynote lecture given at the "Third International Deleuze Studies in Asia Conference. Inter-national, inter-connection, inter-operativity", 05-07.06.15. Hosted by Manipal Centre for Philosophy and Humanities, Manipal University, Mangalore, India.
  • Show author(s) (2014). “Imaginaries of the Future: Concluding Remarks “. Paper presented at “Strangers in Strange Lands: Mapping the Relationship between Anthropology and Science Fiction”, an interdisciplinary workshop, 15-16 November 2014, School of Anthropology and Conservation, University of Kent.
  • Show author(s) (2014). "Mitchell and Latour: Two Approaches to Networks. Elementary Critical Considerations". Keynote lecture given at the Mitchell Centre for Social Network Analysis, University of Manchester. 50th anniversary Conference, 29 October 2014.
  • Show author(s) (2010). 'The corporate state'. Paper presented at the Fulbright 60 year conference 'Sustainable societies in the tropical world', 18.-20. August 2010, Cairns.
  • Show author(s) (2010). 'Ritual Virtualities: Beyond Dramatic Metaphors.' Paper presented at the conference 'Performing the future', 8.-10. July 2010, Berlin.
  • Show author(s) (2010). "Victor Turner and the Concept of the Liminal". Keynote lecture at the conference "Death and liminality. Concepts, rituals and iconography" held at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Groningen 29th and 30th of October 2010.
  • Show author(s) (2010). "Montage and Time: Deleuze, Cinema and a Buddhist Sorcery Rite". Paper presented at the Senior Seminar, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge, 4. November 2010.
  • Show author(s) (2008). Virtuality and Liminality: the Contribution of Victor Turner to the Study of Ritual.
  • Show author(s) (2008). Violence and the Formation of the Corporate State.
  • Show author(s) (2008). Mary Douglas, Henri Frankfort and the Virtual.
  • Show author(s) (2008). Europe at, across and beyond the borders.
  • Show author(s) (2006). The Manchester School and the Issue of Holism.
  • Show author(s) (2006). The ANZAC Tradition and Australian Nationalism.
  • Show author(s) (2006). Erewhon Revisted: Anthropology and the Dialectis of the Enlightenment.
  • Show author(s) (2005). The logic of healing in Sri Lanka.
  • Show author(s) (2005). The Aesthetics of Symbolic Construction and Experience.
  • Show author(s) (2005). Situational analysis and the Manchester School.
  • Show author(s) (2005). New ontological constructions in the cinema.
  • Show author(s) (2005). New Formations of Power, the Oligarchic-Corporate State, and Anthropological Ideological Discourse.
  • Show author(s) (2005). Introduction, comments and final summary.
  • Show author(s) (2005). Globalization and the corporate state.
  • Show author(s) (2004). War and the State: A critical introduction.
  • Show author(s) (2004). Old Permutations, New Formations: War, State and Global Transgression.
  • Show author(s) (2004). Democracy and the state.
  • Show author(s) (2003). Post Colonial State Formations.
  • Show author(s) (2003). Healing in Sri Lanka.
  • Show author(s) (2003). Egalitarianism and the Australian State, Individualism and Postmodernity.
  • Show author(s) (2003). Aesthetics and Exorcism in Sri Lanka.
  • Show author(s) (2000). Sorcery and Resistance in Sri Lanka.
  • Show author(s) (2000). Sorcery and Hatred.
  • Show author(s) (2000). New Religious Movements and Globalization.
  • Show author(s) (2000). Globalization and the Resurgence of Irrationality?
  • Show author(s) (2000). Culture, Fieldwork and the Crisis in Anthropology.
  • Show author(s) (2000). Culture and the Crisis in Anthropology.
  • Show author(s) (2000). Critical Perspectives on the Anthropology of Migration and Globalization.
  • Show author(s) (2000). Buddhism and Consciousness.
  • Show author(s) (2000). Anthropology and Secularism.
  • Show author(s) (2000). Anthropology and Globalization.
Editorial
  • Show author(s) (2018). Anthropology at risk. Anthropology Today. 1-2.
  • Show author(s) (2012). Responses to David Trigger's Article Anthropology Pure and Profane: The Politics of Applied Research in Aboriginal Australia (previous issue). Anthropological Forum: a journal of social anthropology and comparative sociology. 67-93.
  • Show author(s) (2007). 'Anthropologists Are Talking' about anthropology after globalisation. Ethnos.
Short communication
  • Show author(s) (2016). The Trump Reality. Arena Magazine: The Australian Magazine of Left Political, Social and Cultural Commentary. 18-31.
  • Show author(s) (2013). How to approach the state in anthropology? A response to Thomas Blom Hansen. Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift. 137-139.
  • Show author(s) (2010). Comment [til Pnina Werbners artikkel 'Notes from a Small Place: Anthropological Blues in the Face of Global Terror']. Current Anthropology. 211-212.
Book review
  • Show author(s) (2014). Back to the future. Descola’s neostructuralism. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory. 389-400.
  • Show author(s) (2002). Foundation and Empire (with apologies to Isaac Asimov): A Consideration of Hardt and Negri's Empire. A Review Article. Social Analysis: The International Journal of Anthropology. 167-179.
Academic anthology/Conference proceedings
  • Show author(s) (2018). State, Resistance, Transformation: Anthropological Perspectives on the Dynamics of Power in Contemporary Global Realities. Sean Kingston Publishing.
  • Show author(s) (2018). Moral Anthropology: A Critique. Berghahn Books.
  • Show author(s) (2016). Against Exoticism. Toward the Transcendence of Relativism and Universalism in Anthropology. Berghahn Books.
  • Show author(s) (2015). In the event. Toward an anthropology of generic moments. Berghahn Books.
  • Show author(s) (2012). Contesting the State: The Dynamics of Resistance and Control. Sean Kingston Publishing.
  • Show author(s) (2011). Legends of people, myths of state. Violence, Intolerance, and Political Culture in Sri Lanka and Australia. Berghahn Books.
  • Show author(s) (2010). Contemporary religiosities. Emergent socialites and the post-nation state. Berghahn Books.
  • Show author(s) (2009). Crisis of the state. War and social upheaval. Berghahn Books.
  • Show author(s) (2005). The Retreat of the Social: The Rise and Rise of Reductionism. Berghahn Books.
  • Show author(s) (2005). Oligarchs and Oligopolies. Berghahn Books.
  • Show author(s) (2005). Aesthetics in Performance: Formations of Symbolic Construction and Experience. Berghahn Books.
  • Show author(s) (2004). The World Trade Center and Global Crisis: Some Critical Perspectives. Berghahn Books.
  • Show author(s) (2004). State, Sovereignty, War: Civil Violence in Emerging Global Realities. Berghahn Books.
Academic monograph
  • Show author(s) (2014). 2001 and counting. Kubrick, Nietzsche, and anthropology.
Non-fiction book
  • Show author(s) (1997). The Feast of the Sorcerer: Practices of Consciousness and Power. Chicago University Press.
  • Show author(s) (1992). A Celebration of Demons: Exorcism and the Aesthetics of Healing in Sri Lanka. - 2nd. edition. Smithsonian Institution Press and Berg Press.
  • Show author(s) (1988). Legends of People, Myths of State: Violence, Intolerance and Political Culture in Sri Lanka and Australia.
  • Show author(s) (1987). Power, Process and Transformation: Essays in Memory of Max Gluckman (Special Issue 22). Social Analysis.
  • Show author(s) (1983). A Celebration of Demons: Exorcism and the Aesthetics of Healing in Sri Lanka. Indiana University Press.
  • Show author(s) (1979). The Power of Ritual (Special Issue 1)(Republished 1980). Social Analysis.
  • Show author(s) (1976). Transaction and Meaning: Directions in the Anthropology of Exchange and Symbolic Behavior (Association of Social Anthropology Monograph Series). ISHI, Philadelphia.
  • Show author(s) (1972). Strategy and Transaction in an African Factory. Manchester University Press.
  • Show author(s) (1967). Cooperation, Leadership and Village Structure: a Study of Ten Bisa Villages of the Bangweulu Swanmps, Zambia. Manchester University Press.
Thesis at a second degree level
  • Show author(s) (2007). Aboriginal Dreamings and Existence– Living with the Kuku Yalanji.
  • Show author(s) (2004). Tourism and the Politics of the Body in Cuba:Male and female sexualized strategies.
  • Show author(s) (2004). Porteño Logics:The Meaning of Taste and Moralities in Social Classification in Buenos Air.
  • Show author(s) (2004). Opportunities and racism in a sectarian divide: The Indian community in Northern Ireland.
  • Show author(s) (2004). Coping with Spirits through Healing:The Meeting between Protestantism and Traditional Religion in the Mikea Forest of Southwest Madagascar.
  • Show author(s) (2004). An Angel Watching Over Me: Fan Culture and the Formations of Self and Identity in Buenos Aires.
Masters thesis
  • Show author(s) (2010). The Remnants of Colonial Capital. Economic Crisis and the Social Reproduction of Alienation in the South of Indian Plantation Belt.
  • Show author(s) (2008). The Clash of Domestic Econonies. Microcredit and Household Economic Processes the Migrant Settlements of Kerala, India.
  • Show author(s) (2006). NEW URBAN SPATIALITIES: PUBLIC SPACES AND NEW RELIGIOUS ASSERTIONS IN THE ERNAKULAM URBAN COMPLEX.
Popular scientific article
  • Show author(s) (2016). Brexit and Remain: A pox on all their houses. Focaalblog.
  • Show author(s) (2003). Gluckman og Manchester-Skolen i social-antropogiens historie. Jordens Folk. 11-149.
  • Show author(s) (1978). Structural Marginality and the Urban Social Order. Urban Anthropology.
  • Show author(s) (1977). First Class to Maradana: Secular Drama in Sinhalese Healing Rites. Secular Ritual.
  • Show author(s) (1976). Transactional Models Reconsidered. Transaction and Meaning.
  • Show author(s) (1976). Conflict and Contradiction in a Zambian Mining Community. Conflict and Contradiction: Essays in Honour of Max Gluckman.
  • Show author(s) (1975). Entertaining Demons: Comedy, Interaction and Meaning in a Sinhalese Healing Ritual. Modern Ceylon Studies (Reprinted in Social Analysis Special Issue 1, 1979).
  • Show author(s) (1973). Social network and conjugal role in urban Zambia: towards a reformulation of the Bott hypothesis. Network Analysis: Studies in Human Interaction.
  • Show author(s) (1972). Forms of Joking Activity: A Comparative Approach. American Anthropologist. 3.
  • Show author(s) (1971). Theoretical orientations in the study of labour migration. New Atlantis.
  • Show author(s) (1969). Norms and the manipulation of relationships in a work context. Social Networks in Urban Situations (Manchester University Press, Manchester).
  • Show author(s) (1966). The Population of a Zambian Municipal Township. Communication I (Institute for Social Research, Lusaka). 35pp.
Feature article
  • Show author(s) (2017). Er populisme udemokratisk? Morgenbladet. 30-30.
Doctoral dissertation
  • Show author(s) (2016). The Global Self. Constituting the Self as a Point in a Grid-Based Global World.
  • Show author(s) (2015). Migrants of Consciousness: Spiritual exile, self-transformation and the overcoming of individualism in the Kabbalah Centre.
  • Show author(s) (2010). Buddhism in Popular Culture: The case of Sri Lankan ‘Tovil dance'.
  • Show author(s) (2008). Island of conjuncture: State modalities and historical trajectories in Cyprus.
  • Show author(s) (2008). A State of Corruption? An Anthropology of the South Asian State.
Interview
  • Show author(s) (2014). Nå kommer gerilja-antropologene.
  • Show author(s) (2014). Knuser myter om likhet.
  • Show author(s) (2014). "Say hello to the guerrilla anthropologists".
  • Show author(s) (2012). Moving at the margins to re-centre anthropology.
Academic chapter/article/Conference paper
  • Show author(s) (2018). Introduction: Reconceptualizing the Discipline. 24 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2018). Crises of power and the state in global realities. 22 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2018). Buddhist cosmological forms and the situation of total terror in Sri Lanka’s ethnic civil war .
  • Show author(s) (2018). Afterword. 10 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2016). Introduction: Against Exoticism. 23 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2016). Afterword: Lessons of the Exotic. 9 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2015). When Is a Joke Not a Joke? The Paradox of Egalitarianism. 22 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2015). Introduction. In the Event—toward an Anthropology of Generic Moments. 28 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2014). Cosmology and the mythic in Kubrick’s 2001: the imaginary in the aesthetic of cinema. 32 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2013). The Cosmic Vortex and Don Handelman's Anthropological Vision: A Personal View. 22 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2013). Montage and Time, Deleuze, Cinema and a Buddhist Sorcery Rite. 25 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2012). Post-War Realities in Sri Lanka: From the Crime of War to the Crime of Peace in Sri Lanka. 14 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2012). Forces in the Production of the State. 19 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2010). Louis Dumont and a holist anthropology. 22 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2010). Introduction. Religiosities toward a future. In pursuit of the new millennium. 16 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2010). From the Crime of War to the Crime of Peace. 10 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2009). Introduction: The crisis of power and reformations of the state in globalizing realities. 26 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2007). Max Gluckman. 11 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2007). Egalitarianism. 12 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2007). Cosmologies. 14 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2007). Afterword. 14 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2006). Virtuality. 14 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2006). Nationalism and Neo-Populism in Australia: Hansonism and the Politics of the New Right in Australia. 21 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2006). Mask and Face in Sinhala Exorcism. 17 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2006). Dynamics. 16 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2005). The Social Construction of Reductionist Thought and Practice. 18 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2005). Sorcery and the Beautiful:A Discourse on the Aesthetics of Ritual. 31 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2005). Oligarchic Corporations and New State Formations. 23 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2005). Introduction: The Aesthetics of Symbolic Construction and Experience. 22 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2005). Foreword. 1 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2004). Ritual Dynamics and Virtual Practice: Against Representation and Meaning. 25 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2003). Sorcery and the Shapes of Globalization, Disjunctions and Continuities. 30 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2002). Sorcery, Modernity and the Constitutive Imaginary: Hybridizing Continuities. 24 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2002). Outside All Reason: Magic, Sorcery and Epistemology in Anthropology. 30 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2002). Hatred, Revenge and Sorcery: Reflections on the personalization of violence in contemporary societies. 7 pages.
Encyclopedia article
  • Show author(s) (2004). Ethnic Violence and the Nationalism of Destruction in Sri Lanka. 7 pages. In:
    • Show author(s) (2004). Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity.
Popular scientific book
  • Show author(s) (2002). Tovil:Exorcismes therapeutiques bouddhistes. Editions DesIris.

More information in national current research information system (CRIStin)

Selected publications

Books
2014. 2001 and Counting. Kubrick, Nietzsche and Anthropology. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press.

2011. Legends of People, Myths of State. Violence, Intolerance and Political Culture in Sri Lanka and Australia. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. [Edited edition with contributions from also David Rampton, Roshan de Silva Wijeyeratne, Rohan Bastin and Barry Morris.]

1998 [1988]. Legends of People, Myths of State. Violence, Intolerance and Political Culture in Sri Lanka and Australia. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.

1997. The feast of the sorcerer. Practices of Consciousness and Power. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

1991 [1987]. A celebration of demons Exorcism and the Aesthetics of Healing in Sri Lanka. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

1972. Strategy and Transaction in an African Factory. Manchester: Manchester, University Press.

1967. Co-operation, leadership and village structure. A preliminary economic and political study of ten Bisa villages in the northern province of Zambia. Lusaka: University of Zambia.

1966. The Population of a Zambian Municipal Township. Communication I. Lusaka: Institute for Social Research.


Edited works

2015. [with Lotte Meinert] In the event. Toward an anthropology of generic moments. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books.

2012. [with Angela Hobart] Contesting the state. The dynamics of resistance and control. Oxford: Sean Kingston Publishing.

2010. [with Annelin Eriksen and Kari Telle] Contemporary Religiosities. Emergent Socialities and the Post-Nation-State.  New York og Oxford: Berghahn Books.

2009. [with Bjørn Enge Bertelsen] Crisis of the state. War and Social Upheaval. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books.

2005. Oligarchs and Oligopolies. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books.

2005. The Retreat of the Social: The Rise and Rise of Reductionism. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books.

2005. [with Angela Hobart] Aesthetics in Performance: Formations of Symbolic Construction and Experience. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books.

2004. State, Sovereignty, War: Civil Violence in Emerging Global Realities. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books.

2004. The World Trade Center and Global Crisis: Critical Perspectives. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books.

2002. Beyond Rationalism: Rethinking Magic, Witchcraft and Sorcery. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books.

2002. [with Georges Papigny] Tovil. Exorcismes therapeutiques bouddhistes. Paris: Editions DesIris.

1987. Power, process and transformation. Essays in memory of Max Gluckman. Special issue of Social analysis, vol. 22.

1979. The Power of ritual : transition, transformation and transcendence in ritual practice. Special issue of Social analysis, vol. 1

1976. Transaction and meaning. Directions in the anthropology of exchange and symbolic behavior. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues.


Chapters in books
2015. When Is a Joke Not a Joke? The Paradox of Egalitarianism, in Alessandro Zagato (ed.) The Event of Charlie Hebdo: Imaginaries of Freedom and Control. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 93-114.

2013. Montage and time: Deleuze, cinema and a Buddhist sorcery rite, in Christian Suhr and Rane Willerslev (eds) Transcultural Montage. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 20-39.

2012. [with Christopher Taylor] Introduction: Forces in the production of the state, in Bruce Kapferer and Angela Hobart (eds) Contesting the state. The dynamics of resistance and control. Oxford: Sean Kingston Publishing, pp. 1-19.

2012. [with Roshan de Silva Wijeyeratne] Post-war realities in Sri Lanka: From the crime of war to the crime of peace in Sri Lanka?, in Bruce Kapferer and Angela Hobart (eds) Contesting the state. The dynamics of resistance and control. Oxford: Sean Kingston Publishing, pp. 147-160.

2011. Louis Dumont and a holist anthropology, in Ton Otto and Nils Bubandt (eds) Experiments in holism. Theory and practice in contemporary anthropology. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 187-208.

2010. From the crime of war to the crime of peace, in Ana Pararajasingham (ed.) Sri Lanka: 60 Years of 'Independence' and Beyond. Emmenbrucke, Switzerland: Centre for Just Peace and Democracy, pp. 182-191

2009. [with Bjørn Enge Bertelsen] Introduction: The Crisis of Power and Reformations of the State in Globalizing Realities, in Bruce Kapferer and Bjørn Enge Bertelsen (eds) Crisis of the state. War and Social Upheaval. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp. 1-26.

2008. Afterword: Cosmologies, in Marianne Lien and Marit Melhus (eds) Holding Worlds Together. New York and Oxford: Berghahn, pp 185-198.

2007. Egalitarianism, in Michael Flood et al (ed.) International encyclopedia of men and masculinities. Oxford: Routledge, pp. 167-168.

2007. Max Gluckman, in Clark, David Scott (ed.) Encyclopedia of Law & Society. American and Global Perspectives. Los Angeles: Sage publications.

2006. Virtuality, in Jens Kreinath, Jan Snoek and Michael Stausberg (eds) Theorizing Rituals, Volume 1: Issues, Topics, Approaches, Concepts. Leiden and Boston: Brill, pp. 671-684.

2006. Dynamics, in Jens Kreinath, Jan Snoek and Michael Stausberg (eds) Theorizing Rituals, Volume 1: Issues, Topics, Approaches, Concepts. Leiden and Boston: Brill, pp. 506-522.

2006. [with Barry Morris] Nationalism and neo-populism in Australia: Hansonism and the politics of the New Right in Australia, in Andre Gingrich and Marcus Banks (eds) Neo-nationalism in Europe and Beyond: Perspectives From Social Anthropology. New York og Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp. 248-270.

2006. Situations, crisis, and the anthropology of the concrete. The contribution of Max Gluckman, in T.M.S. Evens and D. Handelman (eds) The Manchestes school. Practice and ethnographic praxis in anthropology. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp. 118-155.

2006. Coda. Recollections and refutations, in T.M.S. Evens and D. Handelman (eds) The Manchestes school. Practice and ethnographic praxis in anthropology. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp. 118-155.

2005. Oligarchic Corporations and New State Formations, in Bruce Kapferer (ed.), Oligarchs and Oligopolies. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp. 1-23

2005. Mask and Face in Sinhala Exorcism, in D. Shulman (ed.) Masked Ritual and Performance in South India: Dance, Healing and Possession. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 72-88.

2005. Sorcery and the Beautiful. A Discourse on the Aesthetics of Ritual, in Angela Hobart and Bruce Kapferer (eds), Aesthetics in Performance: Formations of Symbolic Construction and Experience. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp. 129-160.

2005. The Social Construction of Reductionist Thought and Practice, in Bruce Kapferer (ed.) The Retreat of the Social: The Rise and Rise of Reductionism. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp. 1-18.

2005. Foreword, in Christian Krohn-Hansen and Knut Nustad (eds) State Formation: Anthropological Perspectives. London: Pluto Press, pp. vii-xii.

2004. Ritual Dynamics and Virtual Practice. Against Representation and Meaning, in Don Handelman and Galina Lindquist (eds) Ritual in its own right: Exploring the dynamics of transformation. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp. 35-54.

2004. Introduction. Old permutations, new formations? War, state, and global aggression, in Bruce Kapferer (ed.) State, Sovereignty, War: Civil Violence in Emerging Global Realities. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp. 1-15.

2004. Ethnic Violence and the Nationalism of Destruction in Sri Lanka, in Dinah Shelton (ed.) Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Farmington Hills: Macmillan Reference.

2003. Sorcery, Modernity and the Constitutive Imaginary: Hybridising Continuities, in Bruce Kapferer (ed.) Beyond Rationalism: Rethinking Magic, Witchcraft and Sorcery. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp. 105-128.

2003. Sorcery and the Shapes of Globalization Disjunctions and Continuities: The Case of Sri Lanka, in Jonathan Friedman (ed.) Globalization, the State, and Violence. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press, pp 249-78.

2002. Hatred, Revenge and Sorcery: Reflections on the personalization of violence in contemporary societies, in Tor Aase (ed.) Tournaments of Power: Honor and Revenge in the Contemporary World. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 143-149.

2002. Outside All Reason: Magic, Sorcery and Epistemology in Anthropology, in Bruce Kapferer (ed.) Beyond Rationalism: Rethinking Magic, Witchcraft and Sorcery. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp. 1-30.

2002. Sorcery, Modernity and the Constitutive Imaginary: Hybridizing Continuities, in Bruce Kapferer (ed.), Beyond Rationalism: Rethinking Magic, Witchcraft and Sorcery. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp. 105-128.

1996. Remythologizing discourses. State and insurrectionary violence in Sri Lanka, in D. Apter (ed.) Legitimation of violence. London: Routledge, pp. 159-188.

1995. Bureaucratic erasure: identity, resistance and violence : aborigines and a discourse of autonomy in a North Queensland town, in Daniel Miller (ed.) Worlds apart. Modernity through the prism of the local. London: Routledge, pp. 69-90.

1995. From the edge of death. Sorcery and the motion of consciousness, in A. Cohen og N. Rapport (ed.) Questions of consciousness. London: Routledge, pp. 134-152.

1995. The performance of categories. Plays of identity in Africa and Australia, in A. Rogers and S. Vertovec (eds) The urban context. Oxford: Berg Press, pp. 55-80.

1988. Performance and the structuring of meaning and experience, in Victor Turner and Edward M. Bruner (eds) The anthropology of experience. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, pp. 188-206.

1977. First class to Maradana. Secular drama in Sinhalese writing, in Sally Falk Moore and Barbara G. Myerhoff (eds) Secular ritual. Assen: Van Gorcum, pp. 91-123.

1976. Introduction: Transaction Models Reconsidered, in Bruce Kapferer (ed.) Transaction and Meaning. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, pp. 1-22

1976. Conflict and process in a Zambian mine community, in Myron J. Aronoff (ed.) Freedom and constraint. Amsterdam: Van Gorcum, pp. 55-82.

1973. Social Network and Conjugal Role in Urban Zambia: Towards a Reformulation of the Bott Hypothesis, in Jeremy Boissevain and J. Clyde Mitchell (eds) Network Analysis. Studies in Human Interaction. The Hague: Mouton.

1969. Norms and the Manipulation of Relationships in a Work Context, in J.C. Mitchell (ed.) Social Networks in Urban Situations. Manchester: Manchester University Press.


Journal articles
2014. A Note on Gluckman’s 1930s Fieldwork in Natal. History in Africa, 41: 147-154.

2014. Back to the future: Descola's neostructuralism. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 4(3):389-400.

2013. How anthropologists think: configurations of the exotic. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 19(4), 813-836

2012. [with Diane Austin-Broos; Bastin, Rohan; Merlan, Francesca; Morris, Barry; Peterson, Nicolas; Vaarzon-Morel, Petronella] Responses to David Trigger's article 'Anthropology Pure and Profane: The Politics of Applied Research in Aboriginal Australia' (previous issue). Anthropological Forum, 22(1):67-93.2011.

2011. Strathern’s new comparative anthropology. Common Knowledge, 17(1): 104-110.

2010. [with Lotte Meinert] In the event. Towards an anthropology of generic moments. Social Analysis, 54(3): 1-30.

2010. The Aporia of Power: Crisis and the Emergence of the Corporate State.  Social Analysis, 54(1): 125-151.

2009. [with Annelin Eriksen and Kari Telle] Religiosities toward a Future. In Pursuit of the New Millennium. Social analysis, 53(1): 1-16.

2008. Beyond Symbolic representation: Victor Turner and Variations on the Themes of Ritual Process and Liminality. Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society, 33 (4): 5-24.

2008. Comment: Interrogating the new-pluralist orthodoxy in American Anthropology A new ethnography of the state? Dialectical Anthropology, 32 (1-2): 93-95.

2007. Anthropology and the dialectic of enlightenment: A discourse on the definition and ideals of a threatened discipline. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 18 (1): 72-96.

2007. [with E. Hirsch, E. Martin and A. Tsing] 'Anthropologists Are Talking' about anthropology after globalisation. Ethnos, 72(1): 102-126.

2005. New Formations of Power, the Oligarchic-Corporate State, and Anthropological Ideological Discourse. Anthropological Theory, 5(3): 285-299.

2005. In positions to do great Damage. A comment on the Cushman, Denich, Hayden and Wilson debate. Anthropological theory, 5(4): 577-581.

2005. Situations, crisis, and the anthropology of the concrete. The contribution of Max Gluckman. Social analysis, 49(3): 85-133.

2005. Coda. Recollections and refutations. Social analysis, 49(3): 273-283.

2004. Ritual Dynamics and Virtual Practice: Beyond Representation and Meaning. Social Analysis, 48 (2): 33-54.

2004. Democracy, Wild Sovereignties and the New Leviathan. Bulletin of the Royal Institute of Inter-Faith Studies, 6 (2): 23-38.

2003. Injustice, Suffering and the State: Sorcery and renewal in Contemporary Sri Lanka. Bulletin of the Royal Institute of Inter-Faith Studies, 5(2).

2003. The Australian Society of the State. Social analysis, 47(3): 80-107.

2003. Erindring om forgangne tider. Gluckman og Manchester-skolen i social-antropologiens historie. Jordens folk, 38(3): 11-14.

2002. Outside All Reason: Magic, Sorcery and Epistemology in Anthropology. Social Analysis, 46 (3): 1-30.

2002. Sorcery, Modernity and the Constitutive Imaginary: Hybridizing Continuities. Social Analysis, 46 (3): 103-128.

2002. Ethnicity, Nationalism and Culture of the State. The 17th Edvard Westermarck Memorial Lecture. Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society, 27 (2): 2-23.

2002. Foundation and Empire (with apologies to Isaac Asimov): A Consideration of Hardt and Negri's Empire. A Review Article. Social analysis, 46(1): 167-179.

2001. Anthropology. The paradox of the secular. Social Anthropology, 9(3): 341-344.

2001. Comment on "Random Mind: Towards an Appreciation of Openness in Individual, Society and Anthropology" by Nigel Rapport. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 12(2): 212-214.

2001. Ethnic Nationalism and the Discourses of Violence in Sri Lanka. Communal Plural, 9(1): 33-67.

2001. Globalization, The State and Civil Violence in Sri Lanka. Bulletin of the Royal of Inter-Faith Studies, 3(2): 59-111.

2001. Sorcery and the Shapes of Globalization. Disjunctions and Continuities- the case of Sri Lanka. Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society, 26(1): 4-28.

2001. Star Wars. About anthropology, culture and globalisation. Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society, 26(3): 2-29.

2000. Star Wars: About Anthropology, Culture and Globalization. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 11(3): 174-198.

2000. Sexuality and the Art of Seduction in Sinhalese Exorcism. Ethnos, 65 (1): 5-32.

2000. The sorcery of Consciousness: A Sinhala Discourse on the Dynamics of Consciousness". Jnl. Of Communication and Cognition, 33(1-2).

1999. [with Edward F. Fischer, Quetzil E. Castaneda, Quetzil E. Castañeda, Johannes Fabian, Jonathan Friedman, Charles Hale, Richard Handler, Michael Kearney] Cultural Logic and Maya Identity: Rethinking Constructivism and Essentialism [and Comments and Reply]. Current Anthropology, 40(4): 473-499.

1990. [with Jonathan Spencer, Richard Handler, R. S. Khare, Dennis B. McGilvray, Gananath Obeyesekere, Daniel A. Segal and Martin Southwold] Writing Within: Anthropology, Nationalism, and Culture in Sri Lanka [and Comments and Reply]. Current Anthropology, 31(3): 283-300.

1989. Nationalist ideology and a comparative anthropology. Ethnos, 195-234.

1988. The anthropologist as hero. Critique of anthropology, 8(2): 77-104.

1988. Gramsci's Body and a Critical Medical Anthropology. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, N.S. 2(4): 426-432.

1980. [with Don Handelman] Symbolic types, mediation and the transformation of ritual context: Sinhalese demons and Tewa clowns. Semiotica, 30(1-2): 41-72.

1979. Mind, Self, and Other in Demonic Illness: The Negation and Reconstruction of Self. American Ethnologist, 6(1): 110-133.

1979. Introduction: Ritual Process and the Transformation of Context. Social Analysis, 1: 3-19.

1979. Entertaining Demons: Comedy, Interaction and Meaning in a Sinhalese Healing Ritual. Social Analysis, 1:108-152.

1978. Structural marginality and the urban social order. Urban Anthropology, 7(3): 287-320.

1977. [with Thomas J. Scheff, Brenda E. F. Beck, Michael P. Carroll, Arlene Kaplan Daniels, Richard Day, Stephen Fuchs, Jeffrey H. Goldstein, Don Handelman, Arlie Russell Hochschild, Ivan Karp, Aaron Lazare, Philippe Mitrani, Kurt O. Schlesinger, John D. Stoeckle, Jan Van Baal, W. E. A. Van Beek, Thomas Rhys Williams] The Distancing of Emotion in Ritual [and Comments and Reply]. Current Anthropology, 18(3): 483-505.

1972. [with Don Handelman] Forms of Joking Activity: A Comparative Approach. American Anthropologist, 74(3): 484-517.

1971. [with G.K. Garbett] Theoretical orientations in the study of labour migration. New Atlantis, 2: 179-197.


Book reviews
1998. Book review. Understanding Witchcraft and Sorcery in Southeast Asia by C. W. Watson and Roy Ellen. American Ethnologist, 25(3): 521-522.

1994. Book review. Buddhism Betrayed? Religion, Politics, and Violence in Sri Lanka by Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah. American Anthropologist, 96(1): 172-174 .

1994. Book review. Cultural Complexity: Studies in the Social Organization of Meaning by Ulf Hannerz. American Anthropologist, 96(2): 460-462.

1993. Book review. The Theater of the Mahābhārata: Terukkūttu Performances in South India by Richard A. Frasca. American Ethnologist, 20(3): 637-638.

1992. Book review. A Sinhala Village in a Time of Trouble: Politics and Change in Rural Sri Lanka by Jonathan Spencer. American Ethnologist, 19(4): 843-844.

1992. Book review. Fusion of the Worlds: An Ethnography of Possession among the Songhay of Niger by Paul Stoller. American Ethnologist, 19(4): 845-846.

1985. Book review. The Cult of the Goddess Pattini by Gananath Obeyesekere. American Ethnologist, 12(1): 176-179.

1984. Book review. Medusa's Hair: An Essay on Personal Symbols and Religious Experience by Gananath Obeyesekere. American Ethnologist, 11(2): 384-386.

 

Ongoing major research project
The Egalitarianism Project

Regional focus: Sri Lanka, India, South Africa, Zambia, Australia

Thematic focus: urbanization, ethncity and violence, comparative state formation, ritual and symbolic action, theoretical issues in anthropology.