Univ.-Prof. Dr. Jonas Bens
Heisenberg Professor
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Tuesdays, 4-5pm. (Please use the booking tool on the bottom of the page to book a slot.)
Please send requests via e-mail during the semester break.
Contact
My work investigates how people deal with conflicts in the context of plural normative orders. Methodologically, I combine long-term ethnographic research with an in-depth study of different normative systems—both the law of the modern state and its alternatives, including indigenous normative orders. I analyze the various possibilities of how people can think, feel, enact, embody, and contest central categories of the legal and political such as sovereignty, justice, property, value, or punishment. The overall goal of this transcultural perspective is to better theorize and transform the political dynamics of our contemporary global present at intersection of colonialism, capitalism, and modern statehood.
My books include The Indigenous Paradox: Rights, Sovereignty, and Culture in the Americas (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020) and The Sentimental Court: The Affective Life of International Criminal Justice (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
