Now I am a truly engaged anthropologist!

Good to see you back!

Thanks, Kerim!

Great to have you back, and congrats!

Thanks a lot Martijn!

I have followed some of the new UiO project that you are working on. I think it’sinteresting that a few years ago, I (as a master student!) was the main cause of a “red scare” among anthropologists in Oslo (professors quote in front of class upon noticing my presence: “If the Marxists are coming back, it’s time for me to retire"), and now saying many of the same things is not only acceptable, but even funded anthropology research. Initiatially I had asumed that politics and study fields had no corelation. After a while I came to the conclusion that in fact the different institutes each were dominated by certain political factions which were much morepositive towards students from their own ideological tradition than others. The divisions were something like:

Political science: social democratic right or right wing party,

Sociology: socialist left party (SV),

Social Anthropology: yes to immigration and yes to free trade (Norwegian party “Ventre")

Social Geography: anti-globalization movement/Red Voting Alliance

Criminology: hardcore anarchist activists, Blitz

History: extremely conservative, so much that they weren’t very scared of people like me. Mostly concerned about finding a national Norwegian charactr in the events around 1814 and similar strange things.

The Zeitgeist has changed. That is good. I hope the departments are all more open to people from different political camps now. Good luck!

Very interesting, delayed thanks, Johannes! Yeag, People seem to wake up now. But generally, and this is the most surprising thing I learned after more than eight years freelancing, Universities are generally very conservative institutions