Bruce Kapferer (born 1940 in Sydney) is a prominent Australian social anthropologist. He was raised in Sydney, and studied anthropology at the University of Sydney. Having done field research among the Bisa of Lake Bangweulu followed by research in Kabwe (Zambia), he went on to the University of Manchester to study with Max Gluckman and Clyde Mitchell, and received his Ph.D in 1969.

After years of teaching at Manchester, he founded the anthropology department at the University of Adelaide being joined two years later by Kingsley Garbett, a colleague from Manchester, who came as Reader. Kapferer founded the journal Social Analysis with support of Michael Roberts who was succeeded as the main editor by Kingsley Garbett. He is currently professor of social anthropology at the University of Bergen, Norway [1] and is once again the editor of Social Analysis. He is also one of the main editors of the journal Anthropological Theory, currently published by SAGE Publications.

Kapferer's research interests span from Africa to Asia, and include ritual, thematically healing systems and folk drama, Buddhist cosmology, ethnic identity, nationalism and violence,Globalisation and State Sovereignty, Urban Politics and ecological systems.