Anthropology of law, conflict studies, anthropology of religion, Islam, resource management, law, science and technology studies, migration
Research Area(s)
Mediterraneum, MENA (Middle East and North Africa (Morocco)), West Africa/Horn of Africa, Europe, Canada
Profile
Before joining the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Bertram Turner was academic assistant (assistant professor) at the Institute of Social Anthropology and African Studies in Munich from 1993 to 2001, where he taught anthropology with a special focus on religion and legal anthropology. Having studied social anthropology, ancient history, physical anthropology and human genetics in Munich, he received his doctorate in social anthropology in 1996 on the basis of his comparative research on asylum and conflict.
He has held university teaching positions in Munich, Leipzig and Halle. He has conducted extended field research in the Middle East and North Africa, Germany and Canada. Since 1996 his research interests in south-west Morocco have included the management of natural resources, politics of resource extraction, entanglements of law and technology, Islamic activism, and conflict settlement under conditions of plural legal configurations. His research in Canada has a specific focus on processes of translation within the nomosphere, especially between Moroccans and Canadians of Moroccan origin. One project addresses faith-based dispute management, while another focuses on changing notions of property and property regimes in transnational contexts. Bert Turner has published widely on the anthropology of law, religion, conflict, morality, development, and resource extraction.
Within the Department of Law & Anthropology, Bert Turner is responsible for keeping abreast of the field of anthropology of law, its empirical, foundational and long-term research, as well as its theorizing and future development. His own research focuses on a number of topics within this broad field (see ‘Current Projects’).
Bert Turner is a member of the Research Network Law, Organization, Science and Technology (LOST). He joined the LOST Research Group when it was established and continues – with a brief interruption – to be connected to it since then. See: http://lost-research-group.org/.