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Norwegian Anthropology Day

October 30 @ 9:00 am - 7:30 pm

Norwegian Anthropology Day                

Friday 30 October 2015

Venue: Wolfson Room, British Academy, 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH

This event is free, but tickets must be booked.  To book tickets please go to http://norwegiananthropology.eventbrite.co.uk

09:00-10:00 Registration

10:00 Opening remarks by Prof. Edvard Hviding, Univ. of Bergen

10:15 – 13:00 PRESENTATIONS (25 minutes each including short Q & A)
  10:15-10:40 Social anthropology in Norway: a nutshell history (Prof. Olaf H. Smedal, Univ. of Bergen)
  10:40-11:05 The fieldwork tradition (Prof. Signe Howell, Univ. of Oslo)
  11:05-11:30 No Direction Home? Anthropological constructions of familiarity, and some experiences from Norway (Prof. Halvard Vike, Univ. of Oslo)

Coffee & tea break 11:30-11:45

  11:45-12.10 Anthropology, development, and North-South cooperation (Dr. Gunnar Sørbø, Chr Michelsen Institute)
  12:10-12:35 The unbearable lightness of being a public anthropologist in Norway (Prof. Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Univ. of Oslo)
  12:35-13:00 Disagreement, illuminations and mystery: a brief ethnography of Norwegian anthropology today (Dr. Synnøve K.N. Bendixsen, Univ. of Bergen)

13:00-14:00 Lunch (on site)

14:00 – 17:00 PANEL DISCUSSION (5-7 minutes each, followed by internal and plenary discussion; integrated coffee & tea break)
    Moderators: Prof. Annelin Eriksen and Prof. Christine M. Jacobsen, Univ. of Bergen
    Prof. Penny Harvey, Univ. of Manchester
    Prof. Unni Wikan, Univ. of Oslo
    Prof. Sidsel Saugestad, UiT The Arctic Univ. of Norway
    Dr. Martin Thomassen, NTNU Norwegian Univ. of Science & Technology
    Prof. Marit Melhuus, Univ. of Oslo
    Prof. Vigdis Broch-Due, Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
    Mr. Tord Austdal, PhD candidate, Univ. of Bergen
    Ms. Kaja Berg Hjukse, MA student, Univ. Of Oslo
    Ms. Annicken Lundgård, Save the Children
    Dr. Jan Peter Laurens Loovers, Univ. of Aberdeen
    Prof. Ingjerd Hoëm, Univ. of Oslo

17:00-17:30 Closing discussant: Prof. Marilyn Strathern, Univ. of Cambridge

18:00 Reception

Context
The Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) has in recent years organised a series of annual full-day presentations of other countries’ anthropologies, conveyed by speakers and panels from the countries in question. In 2013 the focus was French anthropology; in the Malinowski Centennial Year of 2014 it was Polish anthropology. In 2015, the spotlight is on Norwegian anthropology. Norway has a distinct and diverse anthropological tradition with close ties to the institutions and practices of British social anthropology, and contact between colleagues, research centres and departments in our two countries is long-standing, diverse and enduring. Social anthropology in Norway is of significant strength in terms of national institutions and international presence. The global fieldwork record remains strong, there is a long record of public engagement by anthropologists, and employment opportunities are diverse. It is therefore of particular interest to have Norwegian anthropology broadly presented and discussed in dialogue among a diverse range of Norwegian practitioners and British colleagues.

Concept
Upon invitation from the RAI, the Norwegian Anthropology Day has been organised by the University of Bergen’s Department of Social Anthropology, through its institutional strategic project “Denaturalizing Difference: Challenging the Production of Global Social Inequality” (funded by the Research Council of Norway, www.uib.no/antro/39371/ispdenaturalizing-difference), which is a collaborative effort with Bergen’s Chr. Michelsen Institute and the University of Oslo’s Department of Social Anthropology. Convenors on behalf of “Denaturalizing Difference” are Prof. Edvard Hviding and Dr. Synnøve K.N: Bendixsen. While the current breadth, historical depth and institutional diversity of Norwegian anthropology cannot be fully covered within the constraints of a one-day event, the day has been set up for wide-ranging intellectual exchanges. After an introductory comment on behalf of the organisers, a series of six keynote lectures will be given by prominent speakers from Norwegians universities and research institutes, covering the discipline’s national history, its consistent grounding in fieldwork and global  ethnography, the long record of anthropological studies of Norwegian society as well as of applied engagements on the development policy scene, the growth and proliferation of public anthropology, and the present national diversity of the discipline. These lectures are followed by a panel discussion that includes brief presentations by representatives of Norwegian anthropology in and outside of academia, PhD candidates and MA students, and British anthropology. The panel will seek to engage the audience in plenary discussion about particular epistemological and political configurations of anthropology in Norway, and about differences and similarities between Norwegian and British anthropological practice. The Norwegian Anthropology Day will conclude on a reflective comment to be given by Dame Marilyn Strathern.  

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