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Janet Roitman
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1996
Associate Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs

Profile:
Janet Roitman received her doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania.  She has conducted extensive research in Central Africa, focusing specifically on the borders of Cameroon, Nigeria, the Central African Republic and Chad. She has published an analysis of the unregulated commerce that transpires on those borders, which inquires into emergent forms of economic regulation in the region of the Chad Basin and considers consequential transformations in the nature of fiscal relations and citizenship.  More generally, her research covers topics of political economy, the anthropology of value, and emergent forms of the political.  Roitman has served as an instructor at the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques de Paris.  She is a research fellow with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and a member of the Institut Marcel-Mauss (CNRS-EHESS) in Paris. Professor Roitman is recipient of many fellowships and grants, and is currently devising a collaborative project on “The Archeology of Violence in Central Africa.”
Recent Publications:
  • Fiscal Disobedience: An Anthropology of Economic Regulation in Central Africa (Princeton University Press).

  • “A Successful Life in the Illegal Realm: Smugglers and Road Bandits in the Chad Basin” in P. Geschiere, B. Meyer, P. Pels, eds., Readings on Modernity in Africa. IAI-James Currey-Indiana University Press, forthcoming.

  • “The Right to Tax: Economic Citizenship in the Chad Basin”, special issue of Citizenship Studies edited by Gordon and Stack, vol. 11, no. 2, May 2007, pp. 187-209.

  • "The Efficacy of the Economy", African Studies Review, Special Issue on Jane Guyer's Marginal Gains, Vol. 50, No. 2, September 2007, pp. 155-161.

  • “The Ethics of Illegality in the Chad Basin” in Comaroff and Comaroff, eds.  dirs. Law and Disorder in the Postcolony, University of Chicago Press, 2006.

  •  “La politique de la valeur.  Une Introduction” (avec J-P. Warnier), Journal des africanistes, 76-1, Sahara : identités et mutations sociales en objets, 2006.

  • “Modes of Governing: the Garrison-Entrepôt” in Collier and Ong eds. Global Assemblages: Technology, Governmentality, Ethics, Blackwell, 2005.

  • “Power is not Sovereign: The Transformation of Regulatory Authority in the Chad Basin”, in B. Hibou, ed. The Privatisation of the State, London, Hurst, 2004.

  • “Productivity in the Margins: the Reconstitution of State Power in the Chad Basin”, in D. Poole et V. Das, eds., Anthropology at the Margins of the State, Santa Fe, School of American Research Press, 2004.

Email:
RoitmanJ@newschool.edu

Research Interests:
-political economy
-emergent forms of the political
-anthropology of economics
-anthropology of reason
-Central Africa
Professional Affiliations:
- American Anthropology Association
- African Studies Association
- Fonds d’analyse des sociétés politiques (FASOPO, Paris)
- Editorial Collective, Public Culture, Duke University Press
Recent Presentations/Exhibits:
  • Keynote speaker, symposium “Anthropology and controversy: rethinking the position of the anthropologists through contested research,” 27 – 28 November, 2008, Leiden, The Netherlands

  • Annual Distinguished Lecture on Africa, Ghent Africa Platform and the Conflict Research Group, Ghent University, 16 December 2008

  • Plenary speaker, “Rethinking Economic Anthropology: a human centred approach”, Economic and Social Research Council (UK), Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics, 11-12 January 2008


Awards and Honors:
Kwame Nkrumah African Studies Prize for best dissertation in African Studies, African Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania (1997)

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