Professor Joost Fontein is an independent scholar based in South Africa and Kenya, a research associate with the University of the Free State, and recently (February -June 2026), visiting professor at the University of Pretoria. He previously held a chair at the University of Johannesburg (2018–2025), and before that was director of the British Institute in Eastern Africa in Nairobi (2014–2018). He received his PhD in Social anthropology from the University of Edinburgh in 2003, where subsequently held a postdoctoral research position and then a lectureship, from 2004 to 2014. He has carried out long periods of ethnographic research in Zimbabwe and Kenya, as well as shorter periods in Tanzania, South Africa and elsewhere across the region. He is a former editor (2023-2026) of AFRICA (International Africa Institute) and is now an editor of the Journal of Southern African Studies (since 2026, was previously editor of JSAS in 2008-2014). He also cofounded Critical African Studies and serves on the editorial advisory boards of Anthropology Southern Africa and Human Remains and Violence. Among numerous special issues and articles, he has published three monographs on Zimbabwe, the most recent being The Politics of the Dead in Zimbabwe 2000–2020: Bones Rumours and Spirits (James Currey, 2022), as well as a collaborative, multimodal, and experimental ethnography of Nairobi (Nairobi Becoming: Security, Uncertainty and Contingency, Punctum Press, 2024).
He has written expert reports for Zimbabwean asylum cases in the UK as well as for several criminal cases involving witchcraft and spirit possession (see Fontein J. 2014 ‘“She appeared to be in some kind of trance” Anthropology and the question of unknowability in a criminal trial’ in HAU Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 4 (1): 75–103). He has also written reports for the UK foreign Office (see 2025 Fontein, J. and Van Doninck, N. ‘Politics in Niger after the 2023 Coup.’ K4DD Rapid Evidence Review 299. Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies. DOI: 10.19088/K4DD.2025.086) and co-curated a series of innovative collaborative exhibitions with artists, writers and scholars at the National Museum of Kenya. He currently moves between the UK, Kenya and South Africa. In his spare time he runs a sound system, paints and travels.
Witchcraft Accusations & Ritual Violence, Citizenship, Statelessness, and Lack of Nationality, Document Authentication, Ethnic Discrimination Or Persecution, Government/State Actor Persecution, Corruption & Impunity, Inter-Communal Conflicts, Land Tenure Disputes, Police Persecution, Political Persecution, Risk of Return, Torture, Nationality Assessment, Likelihood Of Destitution Or Homelessness, Safe Internal Relocation, Tribal Discrimination Or Persecution, Deportees/Criminal Deportees
Monographs
2022 The Politics of the Dead in Zimbabwe 2000-2020: Bones, Rumours & Spirits Oxford: James Currey. Paperback and regional press editions published 2023.
2015 Remaking Mutirikwi: Landscape, Water and Belonging in southern Zimbabwe BIEA/James Currey Eastern African Monograph Series, Oxford: James Currey. Finalist for ASA USA Melville Herskovits prize 2016. Re-published in paperback in 2018.
2006 The Silence of Great Zimbabwe: Contested Landscapes and the Power of Heritage London: UCL Press & Harare: Weaver Press. Reprinted 2008. New edition 2016 (Routledge).
Co-authored books/Edited collections/Special issues of journals
2024 Nairobi Becoming: Security, Uncertainty & Contingency, co-curated/edited with Constance Smith, Tessa Diphoorn, & Peter Lockwood, and 28 Nairobian, Kenyan, regional and international contributors including artists, writers and scholars. Punctum Press.
2024 Working People Speak. Oral Histories of Neoliberal Africa. Edited with Jörg Wiegratz and Joseph Mujere. London: Routledge.
2023 Special issue of Africa, 93.1, Urban Materialities in Africa, with introduction by Joost Fontein and Constance Smith, and paper contributions by Joost Fontein, Morten Nielsen, Constance Smith, Armelle Choplin, Kate Dawson, Nick Rahier.
2023 Special Issue of Third World Thematics. Oral histories of economic life in Africa during the neoliberal-capitalist era edited with Jörg Wiegratz & Joseph Mujere, Special Issue of Third World Thematics.
2017 Legacies of Struggle in Southern & Eastern Africa (ed by Joost Fontein & Justin Willis) Special issue of Journal of Eastern African Studies
2016 Crossing Africa and Beyond: essays in honour of Marian Charles Jedrej (1943 - 2007), Special issue of Critical African Studies, 8.1; lead editor, with contributions from Wendy James, Murray Last, Paul Richards, David Pratten, Mark Lamont, Jeanne Cannizzo & Alan Barnard.
2015 Frontiers of Freedom: Homelands in Post-Apartheid South Africa Special Issue of Journal of Southern African Studies, co-editor, with Steffen Jensen and Olaf Zenker
2015 Corporealities of Violence in Southern and Eastern Africa Special Issue of Critical African Studies, Lead editor, with Laura Major Corporealities of Violence in Southern and Eastern Africa, 7. 2.
2013 The Vitality and Efficacy of Human Substances co-edited with John Harries, Special Issue of Critical African Studies. Contributions by Florence Bernault, Jean-Pierre Warnier, Mike Rowlands, Diana Espírito Santo, Anastasios Panagiotopoulos, Katerina Kerestetzi.
2013 African Borderlands with Wolfgang Zeller, Special Issue of Critical African Studies.
2012 ‘Debating Becoming Zimbabwe’, Critical African Studies, Issue No 5, (Dec 2011). Lead Editor & author of Editorial.
2010 The Substance of Bones: the emotive materiality and affective presence of human remains co-editor with C.Krmpotich & J.Harries (eds) Special issue Journal of Material Culture 15(4).
2008 The Power of Water: Landscape, Water and the State in Southern & Eastern Africa. lead editor, with R.Marsland & J. McGregor (eds) Special Issue, Journal of Southern African Studies, 34.4.
Journal articles
2025 Fontein, J. and Van Doninck, N. ‘Politics in Niger after the 2023 Coup.’ K4DD Rapid Evidence Review 299. Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies. DOI: 10.19088/K4DD.2025.086
2024 ‘Joburg becoming? Or what it became?’ Comment on T.Zack & M.Lewis 2022 Wake Up, This is Joburg Duke University Press, in Safundi
2024 ‘Comment’ to K. Takabvirwa ‘Make Shift: Street Vendors as Mobile Infrastructure in Zimbabwe’ Current Anthropology.
2023 ‘Goats, materials and uncertainty in Nairobi’ in Special Issue of Africa, 93.1, entitled Urban Materialities in Africa (ed. Joost Fontein & Constance Smith).
2023 with Constance Smith, ‘Introduction: The Stuff of African Cities’ in Special Issue of Africa, 93.1, entitled Urban Materialities in Africa (ed. Joost Fontein & Constance Smith).
2021 “Reclaiming Great Zimbabwe: progressive or regressive decoloniality? Review article of Great Zimbabwe: reclaiming a ‘confiscated’ past, by Shadreck Chirikure. London, Routledge, 2021” in AZANIA: Archaeological research in Africa, 56:3
2021 ‘From ‘other worlds’ and ‘multiple ontologies’ to ‘a methodological project that poses ontological questions to solve epistemological problems’. What happened to Thinking Through Things?’ Bookmark, in ETHNOS (6 citations)
2020 ‘Burying Bob’ in The Thinker Vol. 84, 4-12
2018 ‘Political accidents in Zimbabwe’ in KRONOS 44:1
2017 ‘ “Those who are not known, should be known by the country” Patriotic history, liberation heritage and the politics of recognition in Gutu district, South Eastern Zimbabwe’ with Joseph Mujere (UZ) and Munyaradzi Sagiya (NMMZ). Legacies of Struggle in Southern & Eastern Africa in Journal of Eastern African Studies.
2017 “Damming the Zambezi: light and power for which nation?” Review Article of Julie Tischler 2013 Lighter and Power for a multiracial Nation: The Kariba Scheme in the Central African Federation AND Allen, F. Isaacman & Barbara S. Isaacman 2013 Dams, Displacement and the Delusion of Development: Cahora Bassa and its legacies in Mozambique, 1965-2007 in Journal of Southern African Studies.
2016 ‘Rain, uncertainty and power in southern Zimbabwe’ in Special Issue of Critical African Studies: Crossing Africa and Beyond: essays in honour of Marian Charles Jedrej (1943 - 2007), 8.1.
2016 ‘Editorial: Crossing Africa and Beyond: essays in honour of Marian Charles Jedrej (1943 - 2007)’ in Special issue of Critical African Studies, 8.1; lead editor.
2015 ‘Editorial: Corporealities of violence in southern and eastern Africa’ in 2015 Corporealities of Violence in Southern and Eastern Africa Special Issue of Critical African Studies, with Laura Major Corporealities of Violence in Southern and Eastern Africa, 7. 2.
2014 ‘“She appeared to be in some kind of trance” Anthropology and the question of unknowability in a criminal trial’ in HAU Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 4 (1): 75–103
2013 with John Harries ‘The vitality and efficacy of human substances’ in Special issue of Critical African Studies - The Vitality and Efficacy of Human Substances. Critical African Studies. 5.3 pp 115-126.
2011 ‘Graves, Ruins & Belonging: Towards an Anthropology of Proximity’ JRAI – Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 17, 706-727 (based on RAI Curl Lecture 2009, British Museum, September 2009.
2010 ‘Between Tortured Bodies and Resurfacing Bones: the Politics of the Dead in Zimbabwe’ in Special issue on “The Substance of Bones” in Journal of Material Culture. 15(4).
2010 with C.Krmpotich & J.Harries ‘Introduction: The Substance of Bones: the emotive materiality and affective presence of human remains’ Special issue of Journal of Material Culture 15(4) (eds.) J.Fontein, C.Krmpotich & J.Harries.
2009 ‘Anticipating the Tsunami: Rumours, planning and the arbitrary state in Zimbabwe’, in AFRICA (August 2009).
2009 ‘“We want to belong to our roots and we want to be modern people”: New farmers, old claims around Lake Mutirikwi, southern Zimbabwe’ African Studies Quarterly, (June 2009).
2009 ‘The Politics of the Dead: Living Heritage, Bones and Commemoration in Zimbabwe’, ASAonline .
2008 ‘The Power of Water: Landscape, Water and the State in Southern & Eastern Africa. An Introduction’ in Special Issue of JSAS, 34.4
2006 ‘Languages of land, water and ‘tradition’ around Lake Mutirikwi in southern Zimbabwe’ Journal of Modern African Studies, 44, 2, pp.1-27.
2006 ‘Shared legacies of the War: spirit mediums and war veterans in southern Zimbabwe’ Journal of Religion in Africa, 36, 2, pp.167-199.
2006 ‘Silence, destruction and closure at Great Zimbabwe: local narratives of desecration and alienation’ Journal of Southern African Studies, 32, 4, pp. 771-794.
2006 ‘Reclaiming Zimbabwe’s Unfinished Business: Review Article of Hammer, A. Raftopoulos B. & Jensen S. 2003 Zimbabwe’s Unfinished Business: Rethinking Land, state and Nation in the Context of Crisis, and Campbell, H. 2003 Reclaiming Zimbabwe: The Exhaustion of the Patriarchal Model of Liberation’ in Africa 75,4.
Book Chapters
Forthcoming:
2026 with Mercy Gitonga, “‘Getting sick around here is a normal thing’: Uncertainty and exceptionality in Nairobi” in Susanna Hoffman & Virginia Garcia-Acosta (eds.) Inplacement: Global Outbreaks and The Anthropology of Isolation Berghahn Books.
2026 ‘The time for knowing together: a response’ in Paul Lane, Mike Jones & Ben Silverstein (eds.) Returns and Reconnections: Engaging Community Relationships with the Deep Past Bloomsbury: London
Published:
2024 ‘Decolonising the dead or decolonising death in southern Africa? Some hesitations’ in Giblin, J, Sinamai A. & Chirikure, S. Routledge Handbook for Cultural Heritage Studies in Africa London: Routledge.
2022 ‘El Nĭno, Cholera, and the Productive Uncertainties of Water in Nairobi’ in Smith, C. (ed.) Sovereignty in a Global Perspective, London: Proceedings of the British Academy.
2021 with Munyaradzi Elton Sagiya “Towards a critical history of the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe (NMMZ)” in National Museums in Africa, London: Routledge.
2018 ‘Death, corporeality and uncertainty in Zimbabwe’ in Anthony Robben (ed.) Anthropology of Death, Companion volume, London: John Wiley & Sons.
2016 ‘Epilogue: On the frontiers of time” in S. Jensen & O. Zenker (eds) Frontiers of Freedom: Homelands in Post-Apartheid South Africa London: Routledge.
2015 ‘Rain, Power, Sovereignty and the Materiality of Signs in southern Zimbabwe’ in John Beardsley (ed), Cultural Landscape Heritage in sub-Saharan Africa Dumbarton Oaks (Harvard) Garden & Landscape Studies series.
2015 ‘Anthropology, Archaeology and African Studies: Some thoughts on theory, stuff and the possibilities of a new Afro-centrism’ in Theory in Africa; Africa in Theory, edited by S. Wynne-Jones & J. Fleisher, Abingdon: Routledge
2014 ‘Remaking the Dead, Uncertainty and the Torque of Human Materials in Northern Zimbabwe’, in Finn Stepputat (ed), Governing the Dead: Sovereignty and the Politics of Dead Bodies Manchester University Press.
2013 ‘Chapter 4 Doing research: Anthropology and ethnographic fieldwork’ in Konopinski N. et al. (eds) Doing Anthropological Research London: Routledge
2013 ‘Chapter 5 Doing research: Fieldwork practicalities’ in Konopinski N. et al. (eds) Doing Anthropological Research London: Routledge
2012, with Filippucci, P. Harries, J. & Krmpotich C. 2011 ‘Encountering the past: unearthing remnants of humans in archaeology and anthropology’ ASAMonograph Archaeology and Anthropology: past, present and future.(ed) D.Shankland, Oxford: Berg.
2011 ‘Between Tortured Bodies and Resurfacing Bones: the Politics of the Dead in Zimbabwe’ revised version of Dec. 2010 JMC paper, published in German in volume edited by Sommer, M. & Kruger, G. Biohistorical Anthropology: DNA and Bones in Cultures of remembrance.
2010 ‘The efficacy of emic and etic in archaeology and heritage’ in U.Rizvi & J.Lydon (eds) World Archaeological Congress (WAC) Research Handbook on Postcolonialism and Archaeology, Left Coast Press.
2011 ‘The Politics of the Dead: Living Heritage, Bones and Commemoration in Zimbabwe’ in Polite K. & Brosius, C. (eds) Media Rituals and Ritual Media Weisbaden: Harrasowitz (revised and reprinted version of that published in ASAOnline 2009)
2005 ‘An ethnographic study of the politics of water and land around Lake Mutirikwi, southern Zimbabwe’ in edited conference proceedings, African Water Histories: Trans-disciplinary discourses Vanderbijl Park: Northwest University.
Occasional papers/Blogs/other publications
2022 Blog/Interview about ‘The Politics of the Dead in Zimbabwe 2000-2020’ in African Griot: https://boydellandbrewer.com/african-griot-politics-of-the-dead-in-zimb…
2021 Blog with Mercy Gitonga, ‘Getting sick around here is a normal thing’: Precarity, exceptionality and governance in Nairobi’s ‘slums’ in 2020’ in Corona Governance in Urban Margins, Utrecht University, https://cgum.sites.uu.nl/getting-sick-around-here-is-a-normal-thing-pre…
2018 ‘Critical collaborations: The Remains, Waste and Metonymy exhibitions, 2015-2018’ Nairobi Contemporary Issue II, December 2018.
2016 (October) Blog ‘The making of Remaking Mutirikwi’: http://www.biea.ac.uk/blog/uncategorized/the-making-of-remaking-mutirik…
2015 (March) Blog ‘Zimbabwe: The darkest hour is not before dawn’ on African Arguments http://africanarguments.org/2015/03/16/zimbabwe-the-darkest-hour-is-not…
2011 Sections on ‘Zimbabwean daily life’ (997-998), and ‘Zimbabwe: Cultural Expression’ (994-6), in The World & its Peoples - Sub-Saharan Africa, Volume 7 Southern Africa. New York: Marshall Cavendish
2009 ‘Sacred places and historic sites: Review of 2008 Mambo Hills: Historical and Religious Significance, by Marieke Clarke,Bulawayo: ’amaBooks’ in BZS Zimbabwe Review, issue 08/ June 2008.
2007 ‘Thriving in the Face of it all. Zimbabwean Theatre at the Edinburgh Festival’ in BZS Zimbabwe Review Issue 07/4 November 2007.
2004 ‘“Traditional Connoisseurs’ of the Past: The Ambiguity of Spirit Mediums and the Performance of the Past in southern Zimbabwe’ Occasional Paper No 99. Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh.
2000 ‘UNESCO, Heritage and Africa: An anthropological critique of World Heritage’ Occasional Paper No 80, Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh.
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