Janet Roitman facts for kids

Janet Roitman is an American anthropologist. An anthropologist studies human societies and cultures. She helps lead the Platform Economies Research Network. This group looks at how online platforms affect our economy.

Janet Roitman is a professor at RMIT University. She is also part of the Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society. This center studies how computers make decisions and what that means for us. She also co-directs the Digital Ethnography Research Centre. This center explores how people use digital tools in their daily lives. She is also an advisor for the Platform Cooperativism Consortium in New York. This group explores fairer ways for online platforms to work.

From 2007 to 2022, Roitman was a professor at The New School in New York City. Before that, she worked as a researcher in Paris, France. She was part of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). She also taught at Sciences Po.

What Janet Roitman Studies

Janet Roitman's research looks at how we understand value in society. She also studies how things become part of the economy. She explores new ways that politics and power show up. Her work has been supported by many important groups. These include The Ford Foundation and The MacArthur Foundation.

Research in Central Africa

Roitman has done a lot of research in Central Africa. She focused on the areas where Cameroon, Nigeria, the Central African Republic, and Chad meet. Her first book is called Fiscal Disobedience. It was published in 2005.

Understanding Unregulated Trade

This book looks at trade that happens outside of government rules. It explores how people buy and sell goods on these borders. It also studies how taxes work and how economies are managed there. The book shows how new kinds of economic value appear. It also looks at how governments change because of this trade. Her work questions ideas about "state failure" in Africa. It suggests we should think differently about how countries work there.

Understanding "Crisis"

Roitman's second book is called Anti-Crisis. It came out in 2013. This book is the first to really look at how the idea of "crisis" works. She argues that "crisis" can sometimes stop us from seeing important things.

The Great Recession Example

She uses the Great Recession of 2007-2008 as an example. This was a big economic downturn. Roitman shows how talking about "crisis" can make us miss bigger questions. For example, how does debt become a form of value? Her book helps us understand how the idea of crisis shapes our world.

Current Research on Digital Finance

Janet Roitman's current research is about digital financial technology. This includes payment apps and online platforms. She studies how these tools might create new ways to invest money in Africa. She also looks at how this affects social classes. Her work gives us clues about how high finance is changing globally.

Select Publications

Books

• Anti-Crisis Durham: Duke University Press, 2013.
• Fiscal Disobedience: An Anthropology of Economic Regulation in Central Africa. NY: Princeton University Press, 2005.

Articles

• "Platform Economies: Beyond the North/South Divide." Finance & Society 9, 1, 2023: 1-13.
• "The Ends of Perpetual Crisis" in H. Rydstrom, et al., ed. Special Issue, Critical Explorations of Crisis, Global Discourse: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Current Affairs. Vol. 12, Issue 3-4, 2022.
• "Why Urgency, Now?" Afterword. Urgency and Imminence: The Politics of the Very Near Future. Special Issue of Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale 30.4, 2022: 143-148.
• "International Consultancy Firms and Africa: New Debt Bonds" in Hurl and Vogelpohl, eds. Public Policy, Private Expertise: Professional Service Firms in a Global Era. Polity Press, 2021.
• "Africa Rising. Class or Finance?" Politique africaine, 40th Anniversary Issue, 161-162, 2021/1-2, pp. 205-226.
• "Africa, Otherwise" in B. Goldstone and J. Obarrio, eds. African Futures: Essays on Crisis, Emergence, and Possibility. University of Chicago Press, 2017.
• "The Right to Tax: Economic Citizenship in the Chad Basin," Citizenship Studies, 2007.
• "The Ethics of Illegality in the Chad Basin," in Comaroff and Comaroff, eds., Law and Disorder in the Postcolony. Chicago, IL.: University of Chicago Press, 2006.
• "Modes of Governing: the Garrison-Entrepôt," in Collier and Ong, eds., Global Assemblages: Technology, Governmentality, Ethics. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004.
• "Unsanctioned Wealth; or, The Productivity of Debt in Northern Cameroon." Public Culture (2003) 15 (2): 211–237.

Interviews

• Interview with Janet Roitman: "Anti-Crisis. Penser avec et contre les crises?" Special Issue "La fabrique et le gouvernement des crises", Critique Internationale 4, No. 85, Paris, Presses de Sciences-po, 2019, pp. 107–121.
  • Abbreviated version reprinted in English: "Anti-Crisis. Thinking with and against crisis" Journal of Cultural Economy, 13, 6. 2020, pp. 772–778.
• Interview with Janet Roitman by Michael Schapira. Full Stop: Reviews. Interviews. Marginalia. 2014.