Why anthropology matters.
Thomas Hylland Eriksen is professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo and author of “Engaging Anthropology: The Case for A Public Presence”. For the Transformations project, he speaks about anthropologists’ relation to the public, and deconstructs the fears we as social scientists often have when thinking about going public: One doesn’t need to oversimplify in order to bridge the gap from the research we do to a wider audience. So don’t be scared of story-telling and don’t hide the great characters and events you discover behind analysis, but rather let analysis speak through them.
0001 anthropology matters eriksen going public from Transformations blog on Vimeo.
TRANSFORMATIONS is a medium through which dedicated and critical anthropologists put their thoughts, experiences and research insights up for discussion using a full range of digital opportunities including text, images, audio and video. We connect our research with themes of a broad public relevance, while also making the personal and often emotional act of research in social and cultural anthropology accessible to a wider audience. We aim for a creative, rich and accessible style of writing that is easy to understand, so that we can put people and their life-stories into the spotlight.
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