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Books by Thomas Hylland Eriksen
Communicating Cultural Difference and Identity
Veien til et mer eksotisk Norge
Languages at the Margins of Modernity
Us and Them in Modern Societies
Et langt, kaldt land nesten uten mennesker
Globalisation – studies in anthropology
This list ends in 2004. For more recent books, consult the homepages in English and Norwegian.
Communicating Cultural Difference and Identity:
Ethnicity and Nationalism in Mauritius
Department of Social Anthropology, Univ. of Oslo: Occasional Papers
in Social Anthropology, 1988.
Originally a dissertation
in social anthropology, this was my first full-length book, which was
published in the Occasional Papers series at the Department of Social
Anthropology, University of Oslo. It presents the history of Mauritius
-- slavery, Indian indentureship, wars between France and Britain, Independence
-- briefly before moving to the analysis proper. Its focus is the maintenance
of ethnic boundaries between the main categories of Creoles (Catholics
of largely African descent), Hindus, Muslims, Tamils, Chinese and Franco-Mauritians;
as well as discussing the conditions for a multi-ethnic Mauritian nation.
I later came to realise that the idea of a multi-ethnic nation is a rather
controversial one among theorists of nationalism, most of whom tend to
see nations as identical with ethnic groups which control a state. Nevertheless,
I argue that the sense of nationhood is sometimes strong in Mauritius
and occasionally surpasses ethnic loyalty in importance. In my later work
on Mauritius, I have moved a step further and looked at interethnic marriages.
But that's another story.
The rather long concluding chapter can be read here.
Hvor mange hvite elefanter?
Kulturdimensjonen i bistandsarbeidet
(How many white elephants? The cultural dimension of development aid)
Oslo: Ad Notam Gyldendal 1989
This edited volume
was put together while I was working briefly as an information officer
at NORAD, the Norwegian state development agency, waiting for a response
to a research grant application. Its message is simple: Development aid
can never be effective unless the locals see the relevance of the project.
Further, the local population cannot see its relevance unless the aid
workers have a minimum of knowledge about local conditions. If an aid
worker in Sudan lacks notions about the differences between say, India
and Sudan, any attempt at "development" is bound to be unsuccessful:
apart from creating general resentment against the imposing foreigners,
such a project is a pure and simple recipe for eternal dependence on the
donors. Contributors to this book include both theorists (mostly anthropologists)
and practitioners (NGO workers and NORAD experts). It has sold rather
well, but since the autumn of 1995 it has been out of print. The introduction
can be read here.
Veien til et mer eksotisk Norge
En bok om nordmenn og andre merkelige folkeslag
(Towards a more exotic Norway: A book about Norwegians and other strange
peoples)
Oslo: Ad Notam Gyldendal 1991
This book, written
in the summer of 1990, was intended as a contribution to the ongoing debate
on immigrants and their integration in Norwegian society. (To the non-Scandinavians
who read this: Yes, Norway does indeed have its share of non-European
immigrants; the largest groups are at present Pakistani, Vietnamese, Turks
and Tamils). Having carried out anthropological fieldwork in two very
sophisticated multi-ethnic societies, Mauritius and Trinidad, I felt an
urge to introduce some of the perspectives current in those societies
in my own local context. The argument is, briefly, that the social democratic
virtue of equality can be a disaster when extended to the realm of culture.
Equal opportunities in education and the labour market are of course commendable,
but equality politics easily becomes a tool of discrimination when it
is applied to religion, language and other customs. However, I distinguish
between "superficial" and "profound" cultural differences;
the latter refers to differences in morality. At this point, cultural
imperialism may be necessary: In order to have a society, one has to subscribe
to a set of shared values, notably those relating to human rights. Tolerance,
in other words, cannot be unlimited lest it degenerates into indifference.
As it is now out of print, the ENTIRE BOOK is available here.
Languages at the margins of modernity:
Linguistic minorities and the nation-state
Oslo: PRIO (International Peace Research
Institute) 1991
This text, a hybrid
between a long essay and a short book, was an attempt to think through
the relationship between equal rights and the right to be different in
the context of the homogenising pressures of the modern nation-state.
As the title implies, the empirical focus was on language. This was the
original abstract:
"On the one hand, cultural differences in the contemporary world
seem to vanish rapidly. This is effected through homogenising processes
of economic and political integration into nation-states and into the
global system, as well as the globalisation of culture brought about through
modern means of mass communication. On the other hand, the last decades
has seen the widespread resurgence of ethnic sentiments and revitalisation
of local cultural identities. This apparent paradox is seen as an inherent
aspect of modernity.
The processes of integration into nation-states puts strong pressures
on minorities to assimilate. For this reason, many minority languages
are threatened. The text, defending the rights of minority languages and
criticising their nationalist antagonists, compares several linguistic
minorities. The comparison focuses on their relationship with the nation-states
to which they are subjected, their strategies of resistance, and problems
in challenging linguistic hegemony. Perhaps paradoxically, cultural minorities
may have to assimilate culturally in important respects in order to present
their case effectively and thereby retain their minority identity.
A main conclusion emerging from the comparisons is that states need not
be nation-states relying on nationalist ideologies proclaiming the virtues
of absolute cultural homogeneity. Although they may be unspectacular,
forms of linguistic oppression are forms of oppression no less, and demand
the attention of peace and conflict researchers."
Since the report is probably out of print, it is reproduced in its entirety
here.
Us and Them in Modern Societies:
Ethnicity and Nationalism in Mauritius, Trinidad and Beyond.
Oslo: Scandinavian University
Press 1992
This book is a hybrid
between a collection of articles and a theoretical monograph informed
by original ethnography. Some of the nine chapters had been published
in earlier versions in various professional journals; some were adapted
chapters from my doctoral thesis; and the introduction was written entirely
for this volume.
Drawing extensively on material collected in Mauritius (1986) and Trinidad
(1989), two multi-ethnic societies which both display the whole range
of ethnic relations at the micro level -- from intermarriage (frequent)
to ethnic violence (rare) -- the book analyses ethnic phenomena at several
levels: in its relationship to a supra-ethnic nation-building ideology,
as a property of social relations and as a property of culture, in relation
to peace and political stability, and in relation to power discrepancies.
In several chapters it is shown that a certain degree of shared culture
is required for a poly-ethnic society to be viable; notably, a shared
set of political rules, a shared labour market and shared institutions
of education. Thus the link between ethnicity and culture becomes tenuous,
as one can have a great ethnic diversity and minor cultural variations
(and vice versa, great cultural variations in ethnically homogeneous societies).
In this sense, all societies are "plural" and not just the poly-ethnic
ones. The introduction, which provides a provisional theoretical overview
of the field, can be read here.
Kulturterrorismen
(Cultural Terrorism)
Oslo: Spartacus 1993, translated
into Swedish and Turkish.
This short, polemic
book lashes out against cultural essentialism, romantic nationalism and
all kinds of smug and self-satisfied reifications of "one's own culture"
at the expense of others'. The idea of "cultural purity" is
deconstructed, the notion of "identity crisis" as it is applied
to people "living in two cultures" is discarded as a social
worker's fiction, and the world view of a poet such as Derek Walcott is
embraced, emphasising the open sea rather than the deep soil as a foundation
for identity. The book could also be described as a sustained attack on
collectivist ideologies of boundaries and purity, whether they are ethnic
or not in character. Why is it, for example, the case that the UN Charter
of Human Rights guarantees every person the right to a nationality but
says nothing about the right not to have one? A re-thinking of the concepts
of culture and cultural identity, and not least of their relationship
to politics, rounds off the short book, a third of which has been made
available by the publisher here. The final chapter can be accessed here.
Små steder -- store spørsmål:
Innføring i sosialantropologi
(Small Places, Large Issues: Introduction to social anthropology)
Oslo: Scandinavian University
Press 1993 -
Not to be confused
with the English book of the same title (they are similar but not identical),
this is a general textbook in social anthropology intended for the undergraduate
level. As such it serves mainly a didactical purpose, but it is also meant
for non-anthropologists who want a comprehensive but basic account of
what social anthropology is and how social anthropologists think. It covers
all the main fields of the discipline; kinship studies, ritual and religion,
roles and social organisation, cosmologies, political and economic anthropology,
and the anthropology of global systems. Needless to say, it was an exhausting
exercise to write this book, but also satisfying in an odd way. A new
edition, by the way, is being published in the autumn of 1998.
A sample chapter is available electronically.
Typisk norsk. Essays om kulturen
i Norge
(Typically Norwegian. Essays on culture in Norway)
Oslo: Huitfeldt 1993.
Written in great haste and with considerable personal enjoyment during the summer of 1993, this book is a hybrid between an introduction on to the anthropology of Norway, a satirical deconstruction of core national myths, a defence of the idea of a multi-ethnic society, and a collection of highly idiosyncratic observations and opinions regarding Norwegian society. Writing this book felt like letting out a lot of steam which had accumulated after years of living in a smug and self-congratulatory society which offered little public space for self-irony and self-criticism. Meant to annoy a lot of people and to amuse others, it did. I was disappointed that few academics seemed to pay any attention to the book, presumably writing it off as frivolous and facetious. Probably it is frivolous and facetious in part, but then again...
As the book has gone out of print, it has now been made available in its entirety on this website.
The complete table of contents and links to the chapters are here.
Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological
Perspectives
London: Pluto 1993/2002, translated
into Swedish and Mandarin.
A general textbook
intended for anthropology students, this book provides both an overview,
empirical examples and theoretical discussions. The publisher's blurb
reads: "Ethnicity and nationalism have become pervasive features
of the contemporary world, but how far is ethnicity caused by cultural
differences, and how much is it in fact dependent on the practical use
of, and belief in, these differences? [The author] demonstrates that,
far from being the immutable property of a group, ethnicity is an aspect
of social relationships. Drawing on a comprehensive range of classic studies
and new research in anthropology and sociology, Eriksen examines the relationship
between ethnicity, class, gender and nationhood, using a variety of examples,
including Muslim minorities in European cities, Native American movements,
German national identity and labour migrants in South Africa. A core text
for all students of social anthropology, Ethnicity and Nationalism provides
a broad overview of the key theoretical dimensions of this controversial
subject. In the process, Eriksen also demonstrates that a focus on ethnicity
and nationalism provides an excellent starting point for an investigation
of key problems in contemporary social theory."
The introductory chapter can be read here.
Kulturforskjeller i praksis
(Cultural differences in practice)
co-author: Torunn Arntsen Sørheim
Oslo: Ad Notam Gyldendal 1994/1998/2003,
also published in Danish
A textbook intended
for college students in a wide range of disciplines (from the police academy
to the teaching college) and a general introduction to multi-ethnic Norway,
this was a collaborative effort between myself and a medical anthropologist
specialising in immigrant women. It thus actually covers a lot of ground
-- my chapters concentrate on general theoretical issues such as the concepts
of ethnicity, culture, nationalism and the multi-ethnic society, human
rights questions, the public vs. the private sphere and the importance
of language and symbolic dominance, whereas Torunn Arntsen Sørheim's
chapters focus on the family, marriage, disease, the cultural body and
food.
The concluding chapter, which sketches six possible scenarios for our
multiethnic future, is available here.
Kulturelle veikryss. Essays om kreolisering
(Cultural crossroads. Essays on creolisation)
Oslo: Scandinavian University
Press 1994
This is a collection
of essays that I feel personally rather strongly about. It came about
partly as a by-product of anthropological field work: in the field, one
inevitably hoards masses of material which can never be properly exploited
professionally -- the ambience of a setting, smells, sentiments, personal
encounters, non-topical issues -- and which have found an outlet in those
parts of the book which might be classified as travel essays. The book
is also, however, meant as a sustained theoretical reflection on the notion
of culture and ways in which it needs to be reconceptualised. The places
I describe -- Brussels, Bombay, Trinidad, Mauritius -- are crossroads
where discrete strains meet, mix and mingle, where culture needs to be
conceptualised as an unbounded flow rather than as a bounded entity. Those
four central essays are thus wrapped in three theoretical essays: one
on the coral reef metaphor for culture versus my own notion of culture
as a magnetic field; one on the "Friday syndrome" or the cultural
inferiority complex of Third World societies; and finally, one on the
deterritorialisation of culture, its ongoing delinking from spatial constraints
and the reconfiguration (and reconceptualisation) of cultural difference
at the end of the millennium.
The final essay, admittedly not the most accessible text in this collection,
but in my view the most important one, can be read here.
Kan EU være demokratisk?
(Can the EU be democratic?)
(co-authors: Tore Myhre, Nina Græger, Janne Haaland Matlary)
Oslo: Ad Notam Gyldendal 1994
Written in the heat
of the EU debate in Norway (the referendum took place in November 1994),
this brief co-authored book sets out to discuss the idea of democracy
in relation to the EU. Our claim was that despite the "democratic
deficit" in Brussels, the EU had a very real potential to develop
viable and improved democratic structures in European societies, largely
through a consistent use of the subsidiarity principle. The general normative
idea animating the collaboration was the belief that since real democracy
presupposes real power, Norway should join the EU instead of remaining
a dependent vassal state.
As I wrote the first two chapters of this book, and since it certainly
won't sell any more copies now, they are available here
and here. Both deal with the relationship between
cultural and political identity.
Det nye fiendebildet
(The new enemy image)
Oslo: Cappelen 1995
Beginning as a newspaper
article on the Rushdie affair in February 1995 and ending as a book in
November, this brief study responds to the current vogue of Islam-bashing
in Western Europe and North America. It sets out to show that the new
enemy image of "Islam" is just as absurd as the old spectre
of Communism, where Cuba and Nicaragua were earnestly portrayed as serious
threats to the US of A. The book describes historical connections between
Islam and Christianity, takes pains to distinguish between Islam and Muslims
(one can no more predict an Algerian's behaviour from reading the Qu'ran
than predict a Swede's behaviour by reading the Bible), demolishes fashionable,
but embarrasingly primitive theories of "universal cultural evolution"
(Francis Fukuyama) and "clashes between civilizations" (Samuel
Huntington), discusses the relative lack of symbolic power available to
Muslim minorities in Europe, analyses the rise of politicised Islam with
partiular reference to Algeria, and discusses conditions for a true dialogue
between European and North African/Middle Eastern policy-makers and intellectuals.
It is argued here, inter alia, that the world is faced with many
common challenges and predicaments -- poverty, unrest, environmental degradation...
-- and that those problems ought to form a base for non-exploitative communication
and co-operation across the Mediterranean. The book consistently shows
that the power balance is tilted in favour of the rich post-industrial
countries ("The West"), and that this places a special responsibility
on those countries for the development of balanced relations of communication
between the agents in question.
A central chapter can be accessed here.
Small Places -- Large Issues. An Introduction
to Social and Cultural Anthropology
London: Pluto 1995/2001, also
published in Swedish and Malay
The publisher's blurb
reads: Ranging from Pacific islands to the Arctic north and from small
villages to modern nation states, this concise and accessible introduction
to social anthropology reveals the rich global variation in social life
and culture. Also providing a clear overview of anthropology, Dr Eriksen
focuses on central topics such as kinship, ethnicity, ritual and political
systems, offering a wealth of examples that demonstrate the enormous scope
of anthropology and the importance of a comparative perspective. Dr Eriksen
emphasises the need to establish interrelations between action and social
atructure and between social organisation and cognitive aspects of culture.
Unlike previous texts on the subject, Small Places, Large Issues
broadens the study to incorporate the anthropology of complex modern societies,
thus providing a unique key text for all students of social and cultural
anthropology.
The book is distinct from the Norwegian edition in a number of important
ways. Most obviously, it is much shorter and more concise (and therefore
more affordable in the bookshop). In addition, a number of topical changes
have been done. A new secion on the concept of the person has been added,
the chapters on politics and the economy have been reorganised and updated,
the chapter on economy and ecology has been rewritten extensively, and
so on. As I literally rewrote the book, every paragraph has been modified
to a greater or lesser extent, although the overall structure will be
familiar to readers of the Norwegain edition.
A representative chapter can be read here.
The book is being translated into Malay, and two sample chapters of Prof.
Mohammed Yusoff Ismail's translation are made available: the first,
introductory chapter and the second
chapter, on method and fieldwork.
Kampen om fortiden. Et essay om
myter, identitet og politikk
(The contested past. An essay on myth, identity and politics)
Oslo: Aschehoug 1996, also published
in Swedish
I wrote this explorative,
anthropologically informed essay in the spring of 1995, largely in order
to systematise my own thoughts on the multiple uses of the past. In much
of my previous work, traditionalism and historically justified identities
have appeared as "irrational forces" militating against universal
humanism and a sound understanding of humanity, but clearly the truth
is less simpla than that. The essay thus attempts to come to terms with
the contradiction between the seemingly universal human need to construct
historical narratives as sources of self-identity, and the multiple ways
in which these narratives are being misused for political and other purposes.
The blurb reads: "What do the European celebration of the fiftieth
anniversary of the peace spring of 1945, the Lillehammer Winter Olympics,
the new History of Sweden, the civil war in Sri Lanka, the Bolivian debate
about Columbus and national identity, UNESCO's list over cultural sites,
the Bosnian war, antique shops, the myth of origin of the Iatmul and the
riots in Ayodhya, India, have in common? The answer is that all use the
past to create community, that is collective identification. Myths about
the past, whether they are transmitted orally or through history books,
tell their audience who they are, how they became that way, and perhaps
most importantly, who they are not.
This essay discusses various ways to use the past, and ends in a defence
of myth. At the same time, a number of critical questions are raised regarding
the use and abuse of our personal and collective myths. AS FROM SEPTEMBER 2004, THE
ENTIRE BOOK IS AVAILABLE HERE!
A slightly different version of this book was published in Swedish by
Bonnier Alba in October 1996, with the title Historia, Myt och Identitet
(History, Myth and Identity).
Verden som møteplass. Essays om tverrkulturell
kommunikasjon
(The world as a meeting-place: Essays in cross-cultural communication)
Oslo/Bergen: Fagbokforlaget
1996
This volume was co-written
with a sociologist, Dr. Johannes Brinkmann, who teaches sociology and
cross-cultural communication at the Norwegian Marketing College (Norges
Markedshøyskole). We wrote the book because we felt, frankly, that
a lot of rubbish was being pushed by publishers under the fashionable
heading of "cross-cultural communication", and we wanted to
have our say. The book is intended to show that understanding of cultural
difference is extremely time-intensive and cannot be achieved in a couple
of weekends; why it is difficult and often misleading to generalise about
cultures; and in which ways "culture" is becoming a notion with
great commercial and political potential. In other words: When you see
the word "culture", beware! Essentially, I wrote the first half
while Brinkmann wrote the second half. My contributions range from a genealogic
discussion of the concept of culture and an analysis of identity politics
in contemporary Europe to an ultra-brief manual in cross-cultural communication
and a piece on the cultural diversity characteristic of Norway, notwithstanding
its self-definition as a "homogeneous" country.
The piece on Norway can be accessed here.
(Understanding cultural plurality)
Oslo: TANO Aschehoug 1997
An edited collection of essays, this book is tailored to fit the needs of a range of professional studies at Norwegian colleges. A new subject, "Multicultural understanding", has just (1997) been introduced for various professions (from nurses to policemen), and this book is intended as the main textbook. I hope the target groups are going to like it -- it has not been an easy book to make.
A point of departure for the book is (as for many of my books) the post-cold war world, characterised by new social divisions and conflicts, globalisation and localisation as complementary and sometimes conflicting processes, debates over cultural rights and multiculturalism vs. equality and universal human rights. The contributors are Norwegian specialists in the field: social anthropologists working with minority issues (and "Norwegianness"), a folklorist, a psychologist, an historian, a philosopher and a sociologist of law.
The second chapter, on identity, is available here.
(in Norwegian)
Oslo: Gyldendal 1997, translated into Swedish and Danish
An unusual and ordinary man, Darwin (1809-82) is still the only superhero in biology. His work, particularly the theory of natural selection, has permanently changed our view of humanity and nature. He discarded God as a creative principle, turned Man into a mere animal, and argued that species have no "objective" existence, but are the temporary products of an ongoing process of evolution shaped by elements of random change and necessity.
The book uses Darwin's life as a foil to discuss the impact, implications and limitations of the Darwinian doctrines. The fact that Darwin was himself a single-minded investigator with a poor understanding of philosophy, the arts and politics, sheds light on today's predicament: too much of one kind of knowledge at the expense of losing everything else from sight, leads to gross reductionism. If a hammer is your only tool, you will treat everything as if it were a nail.
The introduction
and the chapter on the Darwinian view of humanity can be read here.
Et langt, kaldt land nesten uten mennesker
Oslo: Universitetsforlaget 1998, translated into Albanian!
This textbook written for the Norwegian secondary school is intended for students with a non-Norwegian background. Although most of the children of immigrants are fluent in Norwegian and seem well integrated in most respects, there are many aspects of Norwegian culture and society which may remain hidden to them. In the book, I thus try to disentangle some of the "invisible culture", the implicit and the unsaid; the many taken-for-grantednesses that make up our more or less shared world view, things which are never taught in school and rarely in courses for immigrants, but which are nevertheless important dimensions of Norway. The topics include myths of origin (and national vanity), the impact of puritanist protestantism, the role of the family and women's liberation, the urban-rural conflicts so endemic to Norwegian politics, the official (and often private) relationship to nature, and the values of equality and peace & quiet.
Trying to maneuver between the Scylla of simplistic and gross generalisation and the Charybdis of facile postmodern deconstruction; between the known past and the unknown future; between similarity and variation, I have emphasised the ability of Norwegian society to transform itself -- having changed from a peasant society to a post-industrial one via industrialism over a century -- and its potential to enter the 21st century as a pluralist, non-racist, culturally open-minded society.
A representative sample of the book can be found here.
Common Denominators: Ethnicity, Nationalism and the Politics of Compromise in Mauritius
Oxford: Berg 1998
The book offers a description and analysis of social identities and political culture in Mauritius. Mauritius, an Indian Ocean island-state with a population of about a million, is in several respects interesting both in its own right and as a basis for comparisons. It is multi-ethnic and peaceful, the pace of social change has been rapid throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and it is therefore a relevant place to investigate the relationship between ethnic, national and other identities.
Analytically, the book concentrates on the relationship between ethnic and non-ethnic modes of identification, arguing that the social importance of ethnicity depends not only on political and economic circumstances, but also on kinship organisation. The roles of language and religion are also discussed, and it is shown that their significance for ethnicity is, in the Mauritian context, largely symbolic.
A core concept in the analysis is common denominators, and it is shown how Mauritians negotiate the relationship between the public and private spheres, and how the local discourse on difference and similarity is brought to bear on group identification.
More substantially, the book covers the practical and symbolic dimensions of ethnicity in its taxonomic, social and symbolic aspects, as well as investigating conditions under which other forms of social organisation and collective identity become more viable than those which are ethnically based: nationhood, class, gender and individualism. In the concluding chapters, it is argued that a main opposition in Mauritian society today, unlike in earlier periods, is between ethnic and non-ethnic logics of belongingness and politics.
The book seeks to enhance the comparative understanding of ethnicity, to refine the theory of nationalism and to contribute to the ongoing debates on multiculturalism, identity politics and creolisation.
The relationship between this book and my earlier work on Mauritius needs to be commented upon. Much of this book has been published elsewhere in one way or another -- much of it is similar to parts of Communicating Cultural Difference and Identity, and I have drawn on various articles and essays written over the years. The raison-d'être for Common Denominators, thus, consists in providing an accessible and comprehensive analysis of identity processes in Mauritius; it also sums up one important aspect of my research for the past decade, hopefully making it easier to move on.
A couple of excerpts can be found here.
Ambivalens og fundamentalisme (edited with Oscar Hemer)
Oslo: Spartacus 1999
Ambivalence and fundamentalism: two opposite reactions to the flow of signs and options made available through globalisation in its many forms. Or are they rather complementary, mutually dependent forms of identification which feed on each other and leave individuals oscillating or suspended?
This slim book, co-edited with the Swedish author and journalist (and, increasingly, academic at Malmö University College) Oscar Hemer, presents some of the contributions that emerged from our three years as coordinators of the "Cultural Globalisation" study circle in the Nordic Summer University (1995-98). Although the book is (in my view) fine, it does not give a representative view of the group's activities, which ranged from debates about indigenous peoples and universal values to explorations of the globalisation of food. It nevertheless brings together a bundle of essays about different aspects of globalisation. Among other things, post-apartheid South Africa, Hindu fundamentalism and the impact of America on the 16th century European consciousness are dealt with.
Some bits from this bilingual book can be accessed here.
Oslo: Aschehoug 1999, translated into Swedish, Danish and Russian
Are human beings, when all is said and done, selfish animals, or are we rather born altruists? The naïve question has been raised for centuries -- Hobbes and Rousseau, Smith and Marx, Durkheim and Spencer, Darwin and Wallace -- and in this book, it is re-framed as an interdisciplinary dialogue. My co-author is a biologist with strong humanistic leanings, who discusses group selection, "selfish-gene" biology, recent theories of games and the uniqueness of humans from a biological perspective. In the second part of the book, I discuss the principle of reciprocity (gift-giving and the resulting mutual obligations) as an anthropological fundamental, moving on to the liberal conception of the individual, the nature/nurture debate and, finally, some considerations about the kinds of society that stimulate cooperation versus the ones that encourage ruthless selfishness.
This was a great project for both of us I think; it demanded more lateral thinking and challenged our respective preconceptions more deeply than what we, or anyone, usually achieves within their own environment. We have to write another one, the only question is when. Dag is about as busy as I am.
The book's web page is here.
Oslo: Aschehoug 1999
OK, so I suppose I have to agree with the critics that this, my first novel, is not a timeless masterpiece. But it is better than some of the critics concluded. Its flaws are obvious: it is loosely structured and contains too much complexity of the wrong kind -- in parts it is complicated rather than complex, since the main Gestalt is lost from sight and the various, intertwined narratives do not always add up. On the other hand, I am still convinced that at least there are some good stories here and lots of curious anecdotes about India and Norway.
The book begins as Norway mysteriously disappears. A group of huddled survivors, who for a variety of reasons end up in New Delhi, gather in the lush gardens in front of a swimming pool, trying to reconstruct the main characteristics of the country that was. The result is a string of increasingly bizarre stories about that overfed, lethargic, oil-rich country with its enormously bloated ego, recorded on a laptop computer by a lecturer in information science. As the mysterious Professor K. enters the group, airborne from his Danish exile, the plot thickens as his tragic and sometimes cynical comments punctuate the collective flow of consciousness.
At a different level, the book is a comparison between Norway and India: two opposite countries in almost every regard and yet, both have their notions of simplicity and complexity.
A hypertext extract of the book is actually available here.
Øyeblikkets tyranni
Oslo: Aschehoug 2001
Subtitled "Rask og langsom tid i informasjonsalderen" ("Fast and slow time in the information age"), I wrote this book partly to address a crisis in my own working life -- the difficulty of getting anything done slowly and continuously -- partly as an analysis of the effects of new information technology on the way in which we live in time. The original blurb reads as follows.
This surprising
and original book argues that slow time is a main scarce resource in the
information age. Parents, readers, pensioners, wage workers and politicians
have a common cause here.
Using a wealth of examples, the book offers an accurate diagnosis of this
hurried era . It shows in which ways phenomena such as soap operas, correspondence,
the youth cult, advertising and "flexible work" are connected
to the same logic based on information technology, and how they link up
with the history of modern society.
At the same time, it indicates that there are deep contradictions in technology-driven
contemporary society. Who would have expected the time-saving technology
– from the filofax to e-mail and the mobile phone – to result
in time being scarcer than ever? Availability is now nearly one hundred
per cent; the struggle now concerns the right to be unavailable, the right
to live and think more slowly.
The main cause of the problem is perhaps that there is exponential growth
in everything to do with communication. Electronic media have not reduced
the output of printed media. The Internet has not reduced air trafic.
Fax and e-mail have not reduced the use of the telephone. On the contrary,
all of this and much more is stacked in tall piles of information and
activities that lead nowhere. The moment becomes so overfilled that it
excludes everything else.
Tyranny of the moment depicts a culture about to become its own
worst enemy; where evolution is about to turn into involution. Anyone
who is familiar with the feeling that they never get important things
done becausethere is something else they have to do first, needs this
book. In order to understand their own time and their personal situation,
and in order to be able do something about it.
Here is some more.
London: Pluto 2001, translated into lots of languages
In this, the English version of "Øyeblikkets tyranni", some of the examples have been changed and a few statistics have been updated. It is basically the same book.
Some more information and a sample chapter are available here.
A History of Anthropology (with Finn Sivert Nielsen)
London: Pluto 2001
How we laboured over this book! It took four years to write -- not four years of continuous work, mind you, but of procrastrination, bad conscience and deletions. I think it would be fair to say that my co-author, an anthropologist at the University of Copenhagen, did most of the details while I did most of the general narrative. Unlike the book I co-wrote with Dag Hessen, Finn and I shared responsibility for all chapters, sending them back and forth quite a few times and discussing sporadically over a beer. It was a joy to see the book in print, even if it quickly turned out that it contained a few errors, some of them mildly embarrassing. I'm not going to tell you which they are. Maybe you'll find out for yourself, unless you have a copy from a later print run.
And this is how the preface begins.
This is
an ambitious, but unpretentious book. It is ambitious in that it tries,
in the space of relatively few pages, to make sense of the diverse history
of anthropology. The priorities, omissions and interpretations are to
some extent bound to be contested, since there cannot be a single authoritative
history of anything, least of all a sprawling, dynamic and tension-ridden
field like anthropology. The book is nevertheless unpretentious in that
our chief aim has been to offer a sober and balanced account of the historical
growth of the anthropological enterprise, not to propose an original re-interpretation
of it.
There exists a modest, but growing scholarly literature on the history
of anthropology. This textbook does not try to compete with it. However,
we know of no existing book with exactly the same scope as this one. The
scholarly literature is more specialised, and existing textbooks on anthropological
history are either more theoretically oriented or more strongly committed
to one or a few professional traditions. Although we may not always have
succeeded, we have strived to show the parallel, convergent and sometimes
dynamic developments of all major traditions in social and cultural anthropology.
Thanks to Dr. Aleksandar Boskovic at Rhodes University, a walking encyclopedia of peripheral anthropologies if there ever was one, we now have some ideas about how to make the next edition more global than the current one, which does -- admittedly -- concentrate mostly on the metropolitan (USA, UK, France) anthropologies.
You may read more here. Finn also has made a few bits available on his great website, AnthroBase.
Oslo: Cappelen 2001, also published in Danish
"Behind the enemy image" -- this is an expanded and updated version of "Det nye fiendebildet" (The new enemy image) from 1995. Whereas the previous book had the Gulf war and the Rushdie affair as its main frames of reference, the additional work for this version was done in the aftermath of 11 September.
The schism between "the West" and "Islam" remains a very real one, and I saw few reasons to modify the original thesis dramatically. What is new in this version is an analysis of the importance of a new kind of conflict, between the State and its territorial power, and decentralised, often deterritorialised networks. Interestingly the attempts by states to control the Internet are analogous to attempts by certain states to contain terrorism by controlling territories. Recent news from Iraq show just how efficient such attempts are. Orientalist ignorance, imperial arrogance and naïve notions about local politics in "other" countries are some of the key words.
The first chapter can be found here.
Til verdens ende og tilbake – antropologiens historie (with Finn Sivert Nielsen)
Oslo: Fagbokforlaget 2002
This Norwegian edition of "A history of anthropology" is considerably expanded in relation to the English edition. Our Norwegian publisher did not set a limit concerning length, and we have accordingly shamelessly elaborated on a number of themes and events in the colourful history of our discipline. We have also included some passages on Norwegian and Nordic (Scandinavian) anthropology which would not fit in the international edition, and Finn has made some very creative (and, we think, useful) timelines at the end.
Go here for more.
Globalisation – Studies in anthropology
London: Pluto 2003
"Although the term globalisation has been common in anthropology and neighbouring disciplines only since around 1990, it has spawned an impressive range of books, journal articles and academic conferences. In the mid-1990s, it actually seemed more difficult to find a major sociology or social anthropology conference which did not feature the word prominently in its programme, than to find one which did."
Thus begins the introduction to this edited volume, which is really a more pointed and tightly argued collection of papers than the somewhat vapid title reveals. It deals with methodological issues in the study of globalisation or, to use a more accurate term, transnational flows. The book came about as a result of the research carried out by participants in the project "Transnational flows of concepts and substances", a Research Foundation funded project based at the Department of Social Anthropology. Rather than publishing yet another book about globalisation and anthropology in general, we decided to focus on method. How do people who have been trained to do fieldwork in small communities manage the shift to large-scale societies where people and ideas even have the cheek to move about at will, sometimes crossing oceans and continents while getting on with their business? The contributors include half a dozen members of staff at our department as well as some of our international collaborators.
The introduction can be read here.
Oslo: Universitetsforlaget 2003
In France, they've got the venerable Que sais-je series. In Britain, they've got several excellent series of sharp, short introductions to intellectual themes, including series published by Routledge and the Open University Press (and, of course, the Bluffers' guides to anything from Derrida to red wine). In 2003, the leading academic publisher in Norway decided to develop this idea for a local readership, and so far, four titles have been published – philosophy, history of ideas and comparative literature, as well as this, the most recent one: "What is social anthropology?"
The constraints were considerable in writing this book. The target group was that semi-mythical category of people known as "the general public". Fine with me. The length was to be a maximum of 150 pages. All right, or so I thought. You see, when I had written the book, incorporated comments from an external reader and believed it to be ready for proofreading, my editor sent me an email, late one evening, confessing that he and I had slightly different understandings of the notion "150 pages". In my view, a page was equivalent to 2,000 characters. In his view, the pages we were talking about here were quite a bit smaller. And so I had to delete a third of the text. A chapter on thought styles and classification (one of my favourite areas in social anthropology) had to go, along with a chapter on nature and a short afterword on professional terminologies. Not a great pleasure to press the delete button, but I hope any foreign editions will include the missing pieces, and besides, they are available (in Norwegian) right here, on this website, where no length restrictions apply.
This is where, among other things, the missing chapters can be found!