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23. Jun 2022
kl 09:15 - 10:30

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PUBLIC LECTURE: The social life of things in the Anthropocene

The event is hosted by the Facuty of Social Sciences, Centre for Digital Transformation (CeDiT) and the Department of Global Development and Planning. 

Time

23 Jun
kl 09:15 - 10:30

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Registration deadline

No deadline specified

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Thomas Hylland Eriksen, professor of anthropology at the University of Oslo, will be delivering a public lecture that will revisit key junctures in the anthropology of globalisation and the study of transnational connections, in light of the current historical moment of environmental destruction and climate change.

This is a physical event and is open to all. The lecture will be delivered in English and will take place in Room IU 071, ground floor of the I block of UiA Kristiansand campus. No registration is required.

Click here for a map with walking directions from the main entrance of Campus Kristiansand to Room IU 071.

ABSTRACT

Since the publication of the seminal book The Social Life of Things (ed. A. Appadurai, 1986), the anthropology of globalisation has taken several turns. In the 1980s, the field was still dominated by approaches shaped by Marxism, with a focus on political economy and imperialism. A decade later, cultural globalisation, creolisation and hybridity predominated, sometimes with an emphasis on migration, sometimes focusing on the effects of information technology. In the 2020s, anthropological studies of transnational connections are almost unthinkable without attention to Anthropocene's causes and effects, notably environmental destruction and climate change.

Regardless of academic trends, it has never been easy to reconcile a interest in global issues with the attention to local, lived realities which is the hallmark of ethnography. Drawing on a few examples of successful attempts to do so, this lecture outlines a methodology, which I call globography, for studying transnational connectivity and, ultimately, the world system, without relinquishing the virtues of in-depth ethnography.

BIO

Thomas Hylland Eriksen is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo. He is also a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, an Honorary Member of the Royal Anthropological Institute and an External Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society. His textbooks in anthropology are widely used and translated, and his research has dealt with social and cultural dimensions of globalisation, ranging from nationalism and identity politics to accelerated change and environmental crisis. He has carried out fieldwork in Mauritius, Seychelles, Trinidad, Australia and Norway. 

Thomas Hylland Eriksen

Some of his recent books in English are Fredrik Barth: An Intellectual Biography (2015), Overheating: An Anthropology of Accelerated Change (2016) and Boomtown: Runaway Globalisation on the Queensland Coast (2018). He is currently writing a book about the effects of overheated globalisation on biodiversity and cultural diversity.

(Image on top: Peach_iStock / iStock)