Olaf Zenker - Publications
Monographs and Edited Volumes
In preparation-a: Land Restitution and the Moral Modernity of the New South African State: A Project in Recursive Anthropology [working title of the book manuscript].
In preparation-b: Ohnmacht und Ermächtigung im Umgang mit Flucht: Berlin ein Jahr nach dem langen Sommer der Migration 2015 [“Powerlessness and Empowerment in the Context of Refuge and Flight: Berlin One Year after the Long Summer of Migration 2015”]. Bielefeld (transcript) [Edited volume based on a research seminar with students in Berlin, co-edited with Carolina Forgit-Knerr].
In preparation-c: The Politics of (Post-)Truth: Anthropological Knowledge-Making in Worlds of Normative Others. To be submitted to: HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory [Special Issue, co-edited with Heike Drotbohm].
Forthcoming-a: Reckoning With Law in Excess: Mobilization, Confrontation, Refusal. Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) [co-edited with Mark Goodale].

2024a: Justice in the Anthropocene. In: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie | Journal of Social and Cultural Anthropology 149(2) [Special Issue, co-edited with Anna-Lena Wolf].

2024b: Beyond Expropriation Without Compensation: Law, Land Reform and Redistributive Justice in South Africa. Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) [co-edited with Cherryl Walker and Zsa-Zsa Boggenpoel].

2023a: Collaborations and Contestations in Publicly Engaged Anthropologies. In: Public Anthropologist 5(2) [Special Issue, co-edited with Asta Vonderau].

2022a: Oxford Handbook of Law and Anthropology. Oxford (Oxford University Press) [co-edited with Marie-Claire Foblets, Mark Goodale and Maria Sapignoli].

2018a [2019a as paperback]: The State and the Paradox of Customary Law in Africa. London (Routledge) [co-edited with Markus Höhne].

2017a: Gerechtigkeitsgefühle: Zur affektiven und emotionalen Legitimität von Normen. [“Sentiments of Justice”]. Bielefeld (transcript) [co-edited with Jonas Bens].

2016a [2017b as paperback]: South African Homelands as Frontiers: Apartheid’s Loose Ends in the Postcolonial Era. London (Routledge) [Reprint of 2015a, co-edited with Steffen Jensen].

2015a: Homelands as Frontiers: Apartheid’s Loose Ends. In: Journal of Southern African Studies 41(5) [Special Issue, co-edited with Steffen Jensen].

2015b: Transition and Justice: Negotiating the Terms of New Beginnings in Africa. Malden (Wiley-Blackwell) [Reprint of 2014a, co-edited with Gerhard Anders].

2014a: Transition and Justice: Negotiating the Terms of New Beginnings in Africa. In: Development and Change 45(3) [Special Issue, co-edited with Gerhard Anders].

2013a [2016b as paperback]: Irish/Ness Is All Around Us: Language Revivalism and the Culture of Ethnic Identity in Northern Ireland. New York/Oxford (Berghahn Books).

2010a [2013b as paperback]:Beyond Writing Culture: Current Intersections of Epistemologies and Representational Practices. New York/Oxford (Berghahn Books) [co-edited with Karsten Kumoll].

2004: Techniken zur kommunikativen Herstellung von Gruppenzugehörigkeit: Eine Gesprächsanalyse über Imagearbeit bei Obdachlosen [“Communicative Strategies for Constructing Group Membership: A Discourse Analysis on Face-Work among Homeless People”]. Berlin (dissertation.de - Verlag im Internet).

2001: Ethnizität und politischer Aktivismus: Eine Fallstudie über drei jugendliche Aussiedler in Hamburg [“Ethnicity and Political Activism: A Case Study on Three Ethnic German Repatriates from Russia”]. München (Grin Verlag).
Articles and Book Chapters (peer-reviewed)
In preparation-d: Ohnmacht und Ermächtigung im Umgang mit Flucht: Eine Einleitung ["Powerlessness and Empowerment in the Context of Refuge and Flight: An Introduction"]. In: Olaf Zenker [ed.]: Ohnmacht und Ermächtigung im Umgang mit Flucht: Berlin ein Jahr nach dem langen Sommer der Migration 2015. Bielefeld (transcript) [co-authored with Carolina Forgit-Knerr].
In preparation-e: On the Postliberal Condition: Towards a Recursive Anthropology Beyond Nostalgic Positivism and Alternative Facts. To be submitted to: Current Anthropology.
In preparation-f: The Politics of (Post-)Truth: Contested Knowledge Claims and the Challenges of New Power Constellations in Anthropology – Introduction to the Special Issue The Politics of (Post-)Truth. To be submitted to: HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory [co-authored with Heike Drotbohm].
In preparation-g: Awkward Alignments: Towards Empathetic Scepticism and Agonistic Confrontation in Anthropological Knowledge-Making. To be submitted to: HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory [co-authored with Mario Krämer].
Under review: Racial Justice in Land Restitution. In: Annual Review of Law and Social Science 21.
Forthcoming-b: Strategische Netzwerke inmitten konfligierender Positionalitäten: Public Anthropology in der südafrikanischen Landreform. In: Hansjörg Dilger/Gisela Welz/Beate Binder/Thomas Kirsch [eds.]: Public Anthropology: Wissenspraktiken und gesellschaftliche Interventionen. Frankfurt a.M. (Campus).
Forthcoming-c: Menschvergessenheit / Forgetfulness of Human Being. In: Nigel Rapport [ed.]: Anthropology’s Philosophy: How Anthropology Makes Concepts Its Own. Basingstoke (Palgrave Macmillan).
Forthcoming-d: Introduction: Social and Political Transformation Within, Against, and Beyond the Law. In: Mark Goodale/Olaf Zenker [eds.]: Reckoning with Law in Excess: Mobilization, Confrontation, Refusal. Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) [co-authored with Mark Goodale].
Forthcoming-e: Reckoning with Transformative Constitutionalism: Land Reform, Expropriation Without Compensation and the Iconic Indexicality of Post-apartheid South Africa. In: Mark Goodale/Olaf Zenker [eds.]: Reckoning with Law in Excess: Mobilization, Confrontation, Refusal. Cambridge (Cambridge University Press).
2024c: Towards a New Anthropology of Justice in the Anthropocene: Anthropological (Re)Turns - Introduction to the Special Issue Justice in the Anthropocene. In: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie | Journal of Social and Cultural Anthropology 149(2): 189-216 [co-authored with Anna-Lena Wolf].
2024d: Beyond Expropriation Without Compensation: Law, Land Reform and the Future of Redistributive Justice in South Africa. In: Olaf Zenker/Cherryl Walker/Zsa-Zsa Boggenpoel [eds.]: Beyond Expropriation Without Compensation: Law, Land Reform and Redistributive Justice in South Africa. Cambridge (Cambridge University Press): 3-32 [co-authored with Cherryl Walker].
2024e: Preface: Anton Wilhelm Amo Under Erasure? Lecturing on an Im/Possible Otherwise. In: Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò: Rewriting the History of Modern Philosophy: On Philosophy of History, Political Philosophy and Liberal Education in 19th Century West Africa. ANTON WILHELM AMO LECTURES No 10, edited by Olaf Zenker. Halle (Universitätsverlag Halle-Wittenberg): 7-14.
2023b: Collaborations and Contestations in Publicly Engaged Anthropologies: An Exposition. In: Public Anthropologist 5(2): 129-152 [co-authored with Asta Vonderau].
2023c: Between Weak and Strong Anthropological Phenomenologies: Comment on Michael Schnegg’s Phenomenological Anthropology: Philosophical Concepts for Ethnographic Use. In: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie | Journal of Social and Cultural Anthropology 148(1): 105-108.
2023d: Preface: Anton Wilhelm Amo Under Erasure? Lecturing on an Im/Possible Otherwise. In: Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni: In Memory of Anton Wilhelm Amo: Genealogies of Decolonization and Tasks of Decoloniality in the 21st Century. ANTON WILHELM AMO LECTURES No 9, edited by Olaf Zenker. Halle (Universitätsverlag Halle-Wittenberg): 7-14.
2023e: Digital Infrastructuring as Institutional Affect(ing) in German Migration Management. In: Millicent Churcher/Sandra Calkins/Jandra Böttger/Jan Slaby [eds.]: Affect, Power, and Institutions. New York (Routledge): 105-124 [co-authored with Timm Sureau and Thomas Götzelmann].
2022b: Introduction: Mapping the Field of Law and Anthropology. In: Marie-Claire Foblets, Mark Goodale, Maria Sapignoli and Olaf Zenker [eds.]: Oxford Handbook of Law and Anthropolgy. Oxford (Oxford University Press): 1-15 [co-authored with Marie-Claire Foblets, Mark Goodale and Maria Sapignoli].
2022c: Politics of Belonging. In: Marie-Claire Foblets, Mark Goodale, Maria Sapignoli and Olaf Zenker [eds.]: Oxford Handbook of Law and Anthropolgy. Oxford (Oxford University Press): 772-791.
2021a: Anthropology and the Postliberal Challenge. Contribution to the "Forum on the New Far Right”. In: Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale 29(2): 370-372.
2021b: „Diversität“ in der deutschen Migrationsverwaltung: Zur Domestizierung von Pluralität ["The 'Diversity' of German Migration Management: On the Domestication of Plurality"]. In: Hansjörg Dilger/Matthias Warstat [eds.]: Umkämpfte Vielfalt. Affektive Dynamiken institutioneller Diversifizierung . Frankfurt (Campus): 66-94 [co-authored with Larissa Vetters].
2020a: Mind the Gaps: Renegotiating South African Legal Pluralism Within the Post-apartheid State. In: Katrin Seidel/Hatem Elliesie [eds.]: Normative Spaces and Legal Dynamics in Africa. London (Routledge): 151-171.
2019: Sentiment. In: Jan Slaby/Christian von Scheve [eds.]: Affective Societies – Key Concepts. London (Routledge): 96-106 [co-authored with Jonas Bens] .
2018b: Land Restitution (Old and New), Neo-Traditionalism and the Contested Values of Land Justice in South Africa. In: Jessica Johnson/George Karekwaivanane [eds.]: Pursuing Justice in Africa: Competing Imaginaries and Contested Practices. Cambridge Centre of African Studies Series. Athens (Ohio University Press): 243-263.
2018c: Language and Identity. In: Hilary Callan [ed.]: International Encyclopedia of Anthropology – Section: The Anthropolgy of Politics, Law, Power and Identity. Malden (Wiley-Blackwell).
2018d: Processing the Paradox: When the State Has to Deal with Customary Law. In: Olaf Zenker/Markus Höhne [eds.]: The State and the Paradox of Customary Law in Africa. London (Routledge): 1-40 [co-authored with Markus Höhne].
2018e: Bush-Level Bureaucrats in South African Land Restitution: Implementing State Law Under Chiefly Rule. In: Olaf Zenker/Markus Höhne [eds.]: The State and the Paradox of Customary Law in Africa. London (Routledge): 41-63.
2018f: Why the Individual Must Be Defended ~ Seemingly Against All Anthropological Odds: In Marie-Claire Foblets, Marie-Claire Foblets/Michele Graziadei/Alison Dundes Renteln [eds.]: Personal Autonomy in Plural Societies: A Principle and Its Paradoxes. London (Routledge): 98-111.
2017c: Umbenennung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde e.V. in Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie e.V. am 6.10.2017 in Berlin [Renaming the German Anthropological Association from „Völkerkunde“ into „Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie“ on 6 October 2017 in Berlin]. In: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 142(2): 133-140 [co-authored with Hansjörg Dilger and Birgitt Röttger-Rössler].
2017d: Gerechtigkeitsgefühle: Eine Einführung [“Sentiments of Justice: An Introduction”]. In: Jonas Bens/Olaf Zenker [eds.]: Gerechtigkeitsgefühle. Bielefeld (transcript): 11-35 [co-authored with Jonas Bens].
2017e: From Identification to Framing and Alignment: A New Approach to the Comparative Analysis of Collective Identities. In: Current Anthropology 58(3): 340–359 [co-authored with John Eidson, Dereje Feyissa, Markus V. Hoehne, Boris Nieswand, Günther Schlee and Veronika Fuest].
2016c: South African Homelands as Frontiers: Apartheid’s Loose Ends in the Postcolonial Era – An Introduction. In: Steffen Jensen/Olaf Zenker [eds.]: South African Homelands as Frontiers: Apartheid’s Loose Ends in the Postcolonial Era. London (Routledge): 1-16 [Reprint of 2015c, co-authored with Steffen Jensen]
2016d: South African Land Restitution, White Claimants and the Fateful Frontier of Former KwaNdebele. In: Steffen Jensen/Olaf Zenker [eds.]: South African Homelands as Frontiers: Apartheid’s Loose Ends in the Postcolonial Era. London (Routledge): 83-98 [Reprint of 2015d].
2016e: Anthropology on Trial: Exploring the Laws of Anthropological Expertise. In: International Journal of Law in Context 12(3): 293-311.
2015c: Homelands as Frontiers: Apartheid’s Loose Ends – An Introduction. In: Journal of Southern African Studies41(5): 937-952 [co-authored with Steffen Jensen].
2015d: South African Land Restitution, White Claimants and the Fateful Frontier of Former KwaNdebele. In: Journal of Southern African Studies 41(5): 1019-1034.
2015e: Failure by the Numbers? Settlement Statistics as Indicators of State Performance in South African Land Restitution. In: Richard Rottenburg/Sally Engle Merry/ Sung-Joon Park/Johanna Mugler [eds.]: A World of Indicators: The Making of Governmental Knowledge Through Quantification. Cambridge (Cambridge University Press): 102-126.
2015f: De-judicialization, Outsourced Review and All Too Flexible Bureaucracies in South African Land Restitution. In: The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology 33(1): 81-96.
2015g: Transition and Justice: An Introduction. In: Gerhard Anders/Olaf Zenker [eds.]: Transition and Justice: Negotiating the Terms of New Beginnings in Africa. Malden (Wiley-Blackwell): 1-19 [Reprint of 2014b, co-authored with Gerhard Anders].
2015h: New Law Against an Old State: Land Restitution as a Transition to Justice in Post-apartheid South Africa? In: Gerhard Anders/Olaf Zenker [eds.]: Transition and Justice: Negotiating the Terms of New Beginnings in Africa. Malden (Wiley-Blackwell): 113-134 [Reprint of 2014c].
2014b: Transition and Justice: An Introduction. In: Development and Change 45(3): 395-414 [co-authored with Gerhard Anders].
2014c: New Law Against an Old State: Land Restitution as a Transition to Justice in Post-apartheid South Africa? In: Development and Change 45(3): 502-523.
2014d: Linguistic Relativity and Dialectical Idiomatization: Language Ideologies and Second Language Acquisition in the Irish Language Revival of Northern Ireland. In: Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 24(1): 63-83.
2014e: Writing Culture. In John Jackson [ed.]: Oxford Bibliographies Online: Anthropology. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2012a: The Juridification of Political Protest and the Politicisation of Legalism in South African Land Restitution. In: Julia Eckert/Brian Donahoe/Christian Strümpell/Zerrin Özlem Biner [eds.]: Law Against the State: Ethnographic Forays into Law's Transformations. Cambridge (Cambridge University Press): 118-146.
2012b: On Prophets, Godfathers, Rebels, and Prostitutes: Distributed Agency in the Irish Language Revival of Northern Ireland. In: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 137(1): 23-45.
2011a: Autochthony, Ethnicity, Indigeneity and Nationalism: Time-honouring and State-oriented Modes of Rooting Individual-Territory-Group-Triads in a Globalising World. In: Critique of Anthropology 31(1): 63-81.
2010b: Between the Lines: Republicanism, Dissenters and the Politics of Meta-Trauma in the Northern Irish Conflict. In: Social Science & Medicine 71(2): 236-243.
2010c: Prologue: Opening Doors Beyond Writing Culture. In: Olaf Zenker/Karsten Kumoll [eds.]: Beyond Writing Culture: 1-38 [co-authored with Karsten Kumoll].
2010d: Language Matters: Reflexive Notes on Representing the Irish Language Revival in Catholic West Belfast. In: Olaf Zenker/Karsten Kumoll [eds.]: Beyond Writing Culture: 121-138.
2009a: Autochthony and Activism Among Contemporary Irish Nationalists in Northern Ireland, Or: If “Civic” Nationalists Are “Ethno”-Cultural Revivalists, What Remains of the Civic/Ethnic Divide? In: Nations and Nationalism 15(4): 696-715.
2009b: Response to Joep Leerssen. In: Nations and Nationalism 15(4): 720-722.
2006: De Facto Exclusion Through Discursive Inclusion: Autochthony in Discourses on Irishness and Politics in Catholic West Belfast. In: Paideuma 52: 183-195.
Other Publications
2024f: STIAS Book Launch of “Beyond Expropriation Without Compensation”: The Editors, STIAS Fellows Olaf Zenker, Cherryl Walker & Zsa-Zsa Boggenpoel, in Conversation with Distinguished Professor of Education at Stellenbosch University, Jonathan Jansen. STIAS YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPtKpE1sLaM
2022d: Zur Teilbarkeit ethnographischer Forschungsdaten. Oder: Wie viel Privatheit braucht ethnographische Forschung? Ein Gedankenaustausch. Working Paper SFB 1171 Affective Societies 01/22 (ISSN 2509-3827) [zusammen mit Andrea Behrend, Michi Knecht, Claudia Liebelt, Julia Pauli, Ursula Rao, Michaela Rizzolli, Birgitt Röttger-Rössler und Thomas Stodulka].
2022e: Vor dem Gesetz – Gefühle und digitalisierte Migrationsverwaltung [„Before the Law – Affects/Emotions and Digitalised Migration Management“]. Podcast „More than a Feeling – Gefühle und Gesellschaft“ S2E1 of the Collaborative Research Centre “Affective Societies” [together with Larissa Vetters, Cilja Harders and Jürgen Brokoff]. https://www.sfb-affective-societies.de/forschung/podcast/Episoden/2-Staffel_Folge1/index.html
2020b: Affective Justice Symposium: Sentiments of Justice, Legalism and Affective Meta-Justice at the Dawn of Postliberalism. Opinio Juris (blog), May 29 2020, http://opiniojuris.org/2020/05/29/affective-justice-symposium-sentiments-of-justice-legalism-and-affective-meta-justice-at-the-dawn-of-postliberalism/.
2017f: Wer erhält die Mär vom Edlen Wilden? Gegen die Diskreditierung einer gesamten Disziplin ["Who Preserves the Fairy Tale of the Noble Savage? Against the Discrediting of an Entire Discipline"]. Kulturrelativismus und Aufklärung (boasblog), 01/03/2017, https://boasblogs.org/kulturrelativismus/wer-erhaelt-die-maer-vom-edlen-wilden-gegen-die-diskreditierung-einer-gesamten-disziplin/ [co-authored with Hansjörg Dilger, Kristina Dohrn, Dominik Mattes, Anita von Poser and Birgitt Röttger-Rössler].
2014f: White Claimants and the Moral Community of South African Land Restitution. Halle (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Working Paper No. 151).
2014g: Review: Melancholia of Freedom. Social Life in an Indian Township in South Africa, by Thomas Blom Hansen. In: American Ethnologist 41(2): 384-385.
2013c: Landreform in Südafrika: Die Neuauflage der Landrückerstattung setzt falsche Akzente [“Land Reform in South Africa: The Re-Opening of Land Restitution Leads to a Dead End”]. In: Afrika-Bulletin [Special Issue on "Land Conflicts in Southern Africa"] 151: 6-7.
2012c: The Indicatorisation of South African Land Restitution. Basler Afrika Bibliographien, Basel (BAB Working Paper 2012:01).
2011b: Land Restitution and Transitional Justice in Post-apartheid South Africa. Halle (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Working Paper No. 134).
2010e: Review: Crisis of the State. War and Social Upheaval, Edited by Bruce Kapferer and Bjørn Enge Bertelsen. In: Anthropological Notebooks 16(2): 80-81.
2009c: Diskussionsbeitrag zu Meyers und Schareikas „Neoklassische Feldforschung“ [“Discussion of Meyer’s and Schareika’s Article on ‘Neoclassical Fieldwork’” in the same issue]. In: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 134(1): 107-109.
2009d: The Formation and Mobilization of Collective Identities. Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Working Papers. No. 116 [zusammen mit Brian Donahoe, John Eidson, Dereje Feyissa, Veronika Fuest, Markus V. Hoehne, Boris Nieswand & Günther Schlee].
2009e: Between the Lines of Socio-Cultures of Trauma: Republicanism, Dissenters and the Politics of Meta-Trauma in the Northern Irish Conflict. Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Working Papers. No. 115.
2008: Review: Flag, Nation and Symbolism in Europe and America, Edited by Thomas Hylland Eriksen and Richard Jenkins. In: Anthropological Notebooks 14(1): 123-124.
2005: Irische Identität und irische Sprache im Spannungsfeld von Diskurs und Praxis im katholischen West-Belfast, Nord-Irland [“Irish Identity and the Irish Language in Discourse and Practice in Catholic West Belfast”]. In: Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology [ed.]: Bericht: Sonderausgabe 2005. Halle/Saale (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology): 109-118.
2003: The People Themselves: The Everyday Making of Ethnic Identity in Discourse and Practice in the Context of Conflict in West Belfast, Northern Ireland. In: Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology [ed.]: Report 2002-2003. Halle/Saale (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology): 131-136.