Université de Fribourg

Anthropology on trial : exploring the laws of anthropological expertise

Zenker, Olaf

In: International Journal of Law in Context, 2016, vol. 12, no. 3, p. 293-311

This paper explores the role of anthropological expertise in shaping the outcome of legal proceedings under conditions of cultural diversity. Taking the state-driven land-restitution process in postapartheid South Africa as its point of reference, the text reflects upon the work of anthropological experts in a number of cases and shows how their theoretical and political stances shaped the...

Université de Fribourg

Autochthony and activism among contemporary Irish Nationalists in Northern Ireland, or: if ‘civic’ nationalists are ‘ethno’-cultural revivalists,what remains of the civic/ethnic divide?

Zenker, Olaf

In: Nations and Nationalism, 2009, vol. 15, no. 4, p. 696-715

This article argues for dissolving the civic–ethnic dichotomy into several analytical dimensions and suggests ‘autochthony’ and 'activism’ as two such alternatives. It does so by first presenting a case study of Irish language revivalism and identity discourses in the North of Ireland, in which locals turn out to be both ‘civic’ nationalists and ‘ethno’-cultural revivalists. The...

Université de Fribourg

Autochthony, ethnicity, indigeneity and nationalism : Time-honouring and state-oriented modes of rooting individual–territory–group triads in a globalizing world

Zenker, Olaf

In: Critique of Anthropology, 2011, vol. 31, no. 1, p. 63-81

Recently, proliferating discourses on autochthony and indigeneity have been noted as the flip-side of globalization. Against this backdrop, this article synthesizes insights from studies of nationalism and research on autochthony, explaining how identity formations literally ‘take place’ by conceptualizing ‘autochthony’ – the proclaimed ‘original’ link between individual, territory...

Université de Fribourg

De-judicialization, Outsourced Review and All-too-flexible Bureaucracies in South African Land Restitution

Zenker, Olaf

In: The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology, 2015, vol. 33, no. 1, p. 81-96

This article takes as its starting point a peculiar land claim within the ongoing South African land restitution process – more specifically, the legal and administrative technicalities that allowed for the implosion of the accompanying court case in the Land Claims Court – to open up a space for reflection on the ambiguous nature of state bureaucracies as ambiguity-reducing machines. Tracing...

Université de Fribourg

Homelands as Frontiers : Apartheid’s Loose Ends – An Introduction

Zenker, Olaf ; Jensen, Steffen

In: Journal of Southern African Studies, 2015, vol. 41, no. 5, p. 937-952

Université de Fribourg

Linguistic Relativity and Dialectical Idiomatization : Language Ideologies and Second Language Acquisition in the Irish Language Revival of Northern Ireland

Zenker, Olaf

In: Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 2014, vol. 24, no. 1, p. 63-83

A considerable number of Irish Catholics in West Belfast, originally native English speakers, have started learning the Irish language throughout the Northern Irish conflict in order to feel more Irish. Many of these have developed a strong conviction that the Irish language contains a different worldview from the one embodied in English. However, rather than constituting a plausible...

Université de Fribourg

New Law against an Old State : Land Restitution as a Transition to Justice in Post-Apartheid South Africa?

Zenker, Olaf

In: Development and Change, 2014, vol. 45, no. 3, p. 502-523

Based on a case study of the so-called ‘Kafferskraal’ land claim, this article scrutinizes the ongoing land restitution process in post-apartheid South Africa with regard to its capacity to provide a transition towards ‘justice’. After sketching the legal and institutional set-up of land restitution, the justice of the actual restitution process is explored with reference to conflicting...

Université de Fribourg

South African Land Restitution, White Claimants and the Fateful Frontier of Former KwaNdebele

Zenker, Olaf

In: Journal of Southern African Studies, 2015, vol. 41, no. 5, p. 1019-1034

South African land restitution, through which the post-apartheid state compensates victims of racial land dispossession, has been intimately linked to former homelands: prototypical rural claims are those of communities that lost their rights in land when being forcibly relocated to reserves, and they now aspire to return to their former homes and lands from their despised ‘homelands’....