Univ.-Prof. Dr. Jonas Bens
Heisenberg Professor
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Office hours
Tuesdays, 4-5pm. (Please use the booking tool on the bottom of the page to book a slot.)
Please send requests for consultations via e-mail during the semester break.
Contact
In my research, I focus on how people deal with conflicts in the context of plural normative orders. I combine long-term ethnographic research with an in-depth study of different normative systems, including the law of the modern state and indigenous normative orders. I analyze the various possibilities of how people can think, feel, enact, embody, and contest key legal and political concepts such as sovereignty, justice, property, value, and punishment. The aim of this transcultural perspective is to develop better ways of understanding and transforming the political dynamics of the contemporary global present, shaped by the intersecting forces of colonialism, capitalism, and modern statehood.
My publications 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).
Curriculum Vitae
Academic Positions
since 2024 Heisenberg Professor of Anthropology, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Hamburg.
2015-2023 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Collaborative Research Center „Affective Societies“, Freie Universität Berlin.
2012-2015 PhD scholarship, Rosa Luxemburg Foandation, Institute of Archaeology and Cultural Anthropology, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn.
Education
2021 Habilitation in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin.
2015 PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn.
2013 State Examination in Law, Cologne State District Court.
2012 Magister Artium in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn.
2004-2013 Study Programmes in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Theology, and Law, Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn.
Visiting Appointments
2022 Visiting Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Dodoma, Tanzania.
2016-2017 Guest Researcher, Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Development, Universität Leiden, The Netherlands.
2014-2015 Visiting Research Fellow, Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA.
2014 Visiting Research Fellow, Department of Law and Anthropology, Max Planck Institute of Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale.
Awards
2022 Acceptance into the Heisenberg Programme of the German Research Foundation.
2021 Prize of the Internaitonal Research Marketing Idea's Competition of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
2021 Bonn Americanist Studies Award.
Full CV
Research Interests
- legal anthropology, political anthropology
- colonialism, capitalism, and modern statehood
- sovereignty, justice, property, value, punishment
- affect and emotion
- East Africa (Uganda, Tanzania), Indigenous Americas
Publications
Books (selection)
Stodulka, Thomas, Anita von Poser, Gabriel Scheidecker, and Jonas Bens, eds. 2023. Anthropologie der Emotionen: Affektive Dynamiken in Kultur und Gesellschaft. Reimer. https://doi.org/10.5771/9783496030874
Bens, Jonas. 2022. The Sentimental Court: The Affective Life of International Criminal Justice. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009072342
Bens, Jonas. 2020. The Indigenous Paradox: Sovereignty, Culture, and Rights in the Americas. University of Pennsylvania Press. https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812297188
Articles (selection)
Bens, Jonas, and Larissa Vetters. 2025. ‘Moving beyond and towards Liberal Legalism: Legal Anthropology and the Liberal Rule of Law’. Ethnoscripts 27 (1): 18–23. https://doi.org/10.15460/ethnoscripts.2025.27.1.2456.
Bens, Jonas. 2025. ‘Property as Affect’. In The New Key Concepts in Affective Societies, edited by Jan Slaby, Christian von Scheve, Tamar Blickstein, and Polina Aronson. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003640813-16.
Schnegg, Michael, and Jonas Bens. 2025. ‘Atmospheres’. In The Open Encyclopedia of Anthropology, edited by Hanna Nieber. https://doi.org/10.29164/25atmospheres.
Bens, Jonas. 2025. ‘Capitalist Property as Epistemic Violence: Ethnographic Museums, Colonial Restitution and the Cosmopolitical Challenge’. Oñati Socio-Legal Series 15 (5): 1647–66. https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl.2030.
Bens, Jonas. 2025. ‘The Affects of Transitional Justice’. In The Oxford Handbook of Transitional Justice, edited by Jens Meierhenrich, Alexander Laban Hinton, and Douglas Douglas. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198704355.013.41
Bens, Jonas. 2024. ‘Revisiting Forum Shopping: Navigating Normative Pluralism, Navigating Sentiments’. Legal Pluralism and Critical Social Analysis 56 (3): 517–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/27706869.2024.2419226.
Ivanov, Paola, Laibor Kalanga Moko, and Jonas Bens. 2023. ‘Unhappy Objects: Colonial Violence, Maasai Materialities, and the Affective Publics of Ethnographic Museums’. In Affective Formation of Publics: Places, Networks, and Media, edited by Margreth Lünenborg and Birgitt Röttger-Rössler. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003365426-4.
Bens, Jonas. 2021. ‘Affective Text Trajectories: Toward a Linguistic Anthropology of Critique’. Journal of Pragmatics 186 (2021): 142–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2021.10.005.
D’hondt, Sigurd, Baudouin Dupret, and Jonas Bens. 2021. ‘Weaving the Threads of International Criminal Justice: The Double Dialogicity of Law and Politics in the ICC al-Mahdi Case’. Discourse, Context & Media 44 (December): 100545. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2021.100545.
Podgornik-Jakil, Žiga, and Jonas Bens. 2021. ‘Toward a Comparative Anthropology of Activism: Activist Identity Formations in Germany and Uganda’. Dialectical Anthropology 45 (3): 297–314. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624-021-09628-3.
Ivanov, Paola, and Jonas Bens. 2021. ‘Koloniale Diversität: Die affektiven Regierungsmodi des Liberalismus am Beispiel des Humboldt Forums’. In Umkämpfte Vielfalt: Affektive Dynamiken institutioneller Diversifizierung, edited by Hansjörg Dilger and Matthias Warstatt. Campus.
Bens, Jonas. 2020. ‘Affective Witnessing in the Courtroom’. Parallax 26 (3): 271–85. https://doi.org/10.1080/13534645.2021.1883295.
Slaby, Jan, and Jonas Bens. 2019. ‘Political Affect’. In Affective Societies: Key Concepts, edited by Jan Slaby and Christian von Scheve. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351039260-30
Bens, Jonas, and Olaf Zenker. 2019. ‘Sentiment’. In Affective Societies: Key Concepts, edited by Jan Slaby and Christian von Scheve. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351039260-8
Bens, Jonas. 2018. ‘Affective Images and the Political Trial’. In Image Testimonies. Witnessing in Times of Social Media, edited by Kerstin Schankweiler, Verena Straub, and Tobias Wendl. Routledge Studies in Affective Societies. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429434853-3.
Bens, Jonas, and Larissa Vetters. 2018. ‘Ethnographic Legal Studies: Reconecting Anthropological and Sociological Traditions’. Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 50 (3): 239–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/07329113.2018.1559487.
Bens, Jonas. 2018. ‘The Courtroom as an Affective Arrangement: Analysing Atmospheres in Courtroom Ethnography’. The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 50 (3): 336–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/07329113.2018.1550313.
Duile, Timo, and Jonas Bens. 2017. ‘Indonesia and the “Conflictual Consensus”: A Discursive Perspective on Indonesian Democracy’. Critical Asian Studies 49 (2): 139–62. https://doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2017.1295358.
Bens, Jonas. 2016. ‘Anthropology and the Law: Historicising the Epistemological Divide’. International Journal of Law in Context 12 (3): 235–52. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744552316000112.
Interviews (selection)
Bens, Jonas. 2025. ‘Deutschland ohne Professur für afrikanische Kunst? Das wären die Folgen’. September 24. Deutschlandfunk Kultur. https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/deutschland-ohne-professur-fuer-afrikanische-kunst-das-waeren-die-folgen-100.html.
Bens, Jonas. 2023. „Es geht nicht um einen Eigentumskonflikt, sondern es geht um Macht.“. July 17. SBS Deutsch. https://www.sbs.com.au/language/german/de/podcast-episode/es-geht-nicht-um-einen-eigentumskonflikt-sondern-es-geht-um-macht/yzzursxto.
Bens, Jonas, and Débora Medeiros. 2021. ‘„Der Kolonialismus ist heute noch fühlbar“: Von der Black-Lives-Matter-Bewegung bis zum Umgang mit Migration: Die digitale Plattform „Affect and ColonialismWeb Lab“ ist gestartet’. September 28. Tagesspiegel. https://www.fu-berlin.de/presse/publikationen/tsp/2021/tsp-oktober-2021/41-kolonialismus/index.html.
Bens, Jonas. 2019. ‘Trapattoni, Özdemir Und Jetzt Greta Thunberg: Wutreden - Gefühlsausbruch oder Rhetorik?, Interview mit Jonas Bens’. September 24. Radio Bremen. https://www.sfb-affective-societies.de/archiv/dokumentation/_archiv_medien/transkript_bens-radiobremen_wutreden.pdf.
Bens, Jonas. 2018. ‘Gleiches Recht für Alle? Ein Doppelinterview zum Verhältnis von Indigenenrechten und allgemeinen Menschenrechten. In: Matices – Zeitschrift zu Lateinamerika, Spanien und Portugal, Ausgabe 94.
Podcast
Bens, Jonas. 2021. “The Affect and Colonialism Podcast (12 episodes)” Affect and Colonialism Weblab. https://affect-and-colonialism.net/podcast/.
Complete list of publications
Projects
2025- DFG/BCDSS
The Affective and Material Continuities of the Transatlantic Slave Trade
2024-2029 DFG Heisenberg-Programme
The Material Culture of Empire: Colonialism, Capitalism, and the Law
2023-2027 CRC Research Project
Contested Property II: Affective Dissonance and Relational Ethics in Museum Collaborations
2023-2026 DFG Scientific Network
Pluralizing the Value of Things
2021-2022 DFG/BMBF
Affect and Colonialism Web Lab