I have to confess I have an ambivalent relation to initiatives like the Earth Hour. But anthropologist Stephen Bede Scharper casts an interesting perspective on this new way to save our planet. He describes Earth Hour as "the first globalized ritual"… more »

Are democracy, capitalism, freedom and the concept of romantic love unique inventions of the West? No. In his new book, anthropologist Jack Goody shows that the superiority of the West is largely unreal, even if we look to the recent past. In "The T… more »

In 2005 his movie Metal - A Headbanger's journey took the world with storm. Now anthropologist and metal musician Sam Dunn has released "Global Metal" - a film about the global expansion of heavy metal music. Together with his co-director Scot McFayde… more »

"I had never seen anything like it. I knew immediately that I wanted to study this phenomenon", says

 anthropologist Jeffrey S. Juris. In 1999 he participated in the protests against the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle. Now he ha… more »

Recently, several of my interviews with researchers of the interdisciplinary research program Cultural Complexity of the New Norway (Culcom) have been translated into English. Here are the most recent ones: Does the answer exist in human nature? What… more »

He's not an aboriginal Australian. Nevertheless he has to learn the local indigenous language. He and many other children say it's fun. Teachers, parents and linguists say it is improving self-esteem, literacy and school attendance, rescuing indigenous l… more »

It all started when anthropologist Andreas Lloyd (University of Copenhagen) was browsing on the Internet looking for a new laptop computer and ended up installing the free Windows alternative Linux. Two years later, he finished his master thesis "A syst… more »

What holds humanity together? What are the hidden or unacknowledged features of mainstream society? These are the issues that 21st century anthropology should address, Thomas Hylland Eriksen writes in his paper The perilous identity politics of anthropol… more »