Kamari Maxine Clarke

Kamari Maxine Clarke is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Toronto, cross-appointed to the Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies, Centre for Diaspora & Transnational Studies, and the Department for the Study of Religion. Her work bridges legal institutions, human rights, religious nationalism, and the politics of race and globalization, with a focus on ethnographic analyses of globalizing legal and religious knowledge regimes.

• Ph.D. in Anthropology (1997, UC Santa Cruz)
• M.S.L. (2003, Yale Law School)

Clarke’s research examines how transnational legal and religious systems intersect in contexts like the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the African Union (AU). She has authored monographs such as Affective Justice (2019), Fictions of Justice (2009), and Mapping Yorùbá Networks (2004), alongside six edited volumes.

Her recent articles analyze affective dimensions of international justice, legal materiality, and the geopolitics of racial inequality. She has advised the African Union and contributed to debates on structural biases in the ICC’s engagement with Africa.

• 2021 Guggenheim Prize for career excellence
• 2019 Royal Anthropological Institute’s Amaury Talbot Book Prize

Clarke’s administrative roles include directorships at Yale University’s Council on African Studies and the MacMillan Center for Transnational Analysis. She is a 2024 inductee of the Royal Society of Canada.