Coming of age as an anthropologist: Harry Wels

In this series, we invite anthropologists to share stories of growth, change, and discovery throughout their careers. By reflecting on the life choices that shaped them, the unexpected moments in the field that shifted their perspectives, and the happy mistakes that led to new directions, we hope to shed light on the many ways an anthropological journey can unfold. These are not polished success stories but honest accounts of becoming—moments of doubt, wonder, transformation, and resilience.

Through these reflections, we aim to inspire others who are finding their way in the discipline. Whether you are just beginning or already well along the path, we hope these stories will bring encouragement, laughter, or a tear and a reminder that every career is a process of coming of age.

Interview with Harry Wels

1. 1. Can you describe yourself when you were not yet an anthropologist in one sentence? Were you a dreamer, a chatter, or a thinker? Did you see an opportunity for adventure in everything around you or everything at once?

A reader and ‘a man on a mission,’ hoping, and maybe even expecting, to change the world for the better.

2. 2. Can you describe the moment you knew you wanted to become an anthropologist? (or you may have already been unknowingly.) You can either highlight a moment or a person who has inspired you to choose the path of an anthropologist.

During the start of my Law studies at the University of Utrecht, I constantly struggled with what was considered ‘lawful’ and what would be morally considered ‘righteous.’ At that time, I saw the ‘rule of law’ often not in alignment with ‘social justice.’ A person who inspired me to take an ‘anthropological turn’ was Martin de Boer, at the time working for CEBEMO (the former Catholic development aid organization in the Netherlands and predecessor of Cordaid) in Tanzania.

3. 3. When you look back, how has anthropology as a discipline formed you into the person you are now?

Looking back, anthropology has made me structurally aware of power relations wherever I look. Anthropology has not only made me aware of power relations, but also rather critical, bordering the suspicious. This also holds for the heavy colonial heritage and roots of the discipline that haunt it today. This eye for power relations and the colonial roots of the anthropological discipline have always been fed, inspired, and nuanced by my continued ethnographic fieldwork in and engagement with South and southern Africa. My fieldwork in organizations in Southern Africa, my colleagues in the region, and my position as Extraordinary Professor at the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa, have all been a defining intellectual, but also personal, influence on my ‘becoming.’ Thinking from the so-called ‘periphery’ in southern Africa about what is considered ‘the academic center’ in the Occident has formed me to a significant degree.

4. 4. When you look back, what were moments in your life as an anthropologist that you would now have approached differently?

Definitely! For much too long, I have gone along with speciesism in anthropology. Yes, anthropos in Greek means ‘human being,’ but this anthropocentrism has obscured broader injustices in power relations between humans and fellow-sentience that rather uncritically took this Cartesian divide for granted (myself included).

5. 5. Did you encounter any difficulties in your trajectory towards/within anthropology? How did you deal with this and how did this influence your path?

Yes, during my studies and after my studies, staying within the same university, faculty, and department. During my studies, there was a confusion between a very religious upbringing and developing a critical anthropological perspective, also on religion. The professor who had a keen eye for my struggles and kindly guided me was Professor of Religious Anthropology, Matthew Schoffeleers. After my studies, I was part of developing the anthropological specialization of Culture, Organization and Management (COM), together with Professor Hans Tennekes and Dr. Allard Willemier Westra. While COM ‘saved’ the anthropology department at the VU from discontinuation as a result of too few students, the department was not kind to its initiators. I think it was my ‘missionary zeal’ that pulled me through, combined with an institutional pragmatism and strategic thinking that was taught to me by Professor Hans Tennekes.

6. 6. How do you see your responsibility as a human and an anthropologist for the ages to come?

I feel a huge responsibility for ‘my’ (COM-)students (still to come), combined with strong feelings of complicity, humility, and eagerness to intellectually ‘make up’ for my speciesism of earlier years.

7. 7. What do you hope for/how do you see the future (as an anthropologist)?

Bruno Latour’s despair with regard to ‘Gaia’ resonates deeply with me. It pushes me in the hope that I will be granted time to continue reading, thinking, writing, and teaching Culture, Organization and Management.

Harry Wels is Associate Professor at the Department of Organizational Sciences of the VU.