His current research in South Africa is on crime, policing, and the workings of the state, on democracy and difference, and on postcolonial politics. His authored and edited books include, with Jean Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution (2 vols), Ethnography and the Historical Imagination, Modernity and its Malcontents, Civil Society and the Political Imagination in Africa, Millennial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism, Law and Disorder in the Postcolony, Ethnicity, Inc., Zombies et Frontières A l'Ere Néolibérale, Theory from the South: or, how Euro-America is evolving toward Africa, and The Truth Abouth Crime: Policing and the Metaphysics of Disorder. With Jean Comaroff he is currently completing The Return of Khulekani Khumalo, Zombie Captive: Law, Imposture, and Personhood in Postcolonial South Africa, and co-editing Chiefship and the Customary in Contemporary Africa.