Skip to content

Tag: Thomas Hylland Eriksen

Anthropologist? You’re hired!

3decgiuliaBy Giulia Sinatti (photographs by Vishvas Pandey)

The stereotypical image of anthropologists as weird people studying local customs in odd corners of the globe could not be less accurate, according to speakers at the “Why the World Needs Anthropologists – Burning Issues of Our Hot Planet” symposium held in Ljubljana (Slovenia) on Friday 27 November 2015. People trained in anthropological skills, they suggested, can play a pivotal role as the world struggles to cope with a number of burning issues of our time. Most importantly, they can play this role by understanding local communities far away as well as on their doorstep, and through work in and outside the academic Ivory Tower. Anthropologists, in short, are an urgently needed “breed” of professionals.

11 Comments

A new approach to Human Security

Yesterday, members of our department and Thomas H. Eriksen (Oslo University) presented their new book A World of Insecurity. This collection of essays is the result of years of  fruitful cooperation and debate in the context of the department’s research programme, Constructing Human Security in a Globalizing World (CONSEC), and it provides a captivating sample of the research carried out by our staff.

The concept of Human Security was introduced by the UN Development Programme in 1994, in order to expand the scope of development work and research. Human Security was defined as ‘freedom from want and freedom from fear’. This books draws on a different approach that includes subjective and existential dimensions in an area which has been dominated by quantitative and ‘objective’ measurements of well-being.

1 Comment