Jean Comaroff

Jean Comaroff (born 22 July 1946) is Professor of African and African American Studies and of Anthropology, Oppenheimer Fellow in African Studies at Harvard University. She is an expert on the effects of colonialism on people in Southern Africa.[1] Until 2012, Jean was the Bernard E. & Ellen C. Sunny Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology and of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago and Honorary Professor of Anthropology at the University of Cape Town.[2]

Quick facts: Jean Comaroff, Born, Alma mater, Fields,... ▼

Jean Comaroff
Prof. Jean Comaroff in Cape Town, South Africa, February 2009
Born	(1946-07-22) 22 July 1946 (age 77) Edinburgh, Scotland
Alma mater	University of Cape Town London School of Economics
Scientific career
Fields	Anthropology
Institutions	University of Chicago Harvard University

She received her B.A. in 1966 from the University of Cape Town and her Ph.D. in 1974 from London School of Economics. She has been a University faculty member since 1978.[3]

In collaboration with her husband John Comaroff, as well as on her own, Comaroff has written extensively on colonialism, and hegemony based on fieldwork conducted in southern Africa and Great Britain.

A lawsuit was filed in February 2022 against Harvard University for a pattern of ignoring reports of sexual harassment against students by her husband John Comaroff, alleging that Jean Comaroff was an enabler of her husband's behavior.[4][5]

Comaroff also serves as a member of the Editorial Collective of the journal Public Culture. An important recent book that she wrote with John Comaroff is Theory from the South, which among other things covers "how Euro-America is evolving towards Africa."[6]