Institutt for sosialantropologi ved Universitetet i Bergen

27/10/2026

Huge congratulations to Don Kalb for receiving this year's Publication Award for the book Value and Worthlessness: The Rise of the Populist Right and Other Disruptions in the Anthropology of Capitalism.

According to the committee’s recommendation, Don Kalb’s Value and Worthlessness is an original and highly ambitious work that brings together more than three decades of ethnographic and historical research in a reorientation of Marxist anthropology. Through analyses of labour, value, social reproduction, and political belonging, the book demonstrates how global capitalist processes shape everyday lives and experiences of marginalisation.

This year’s Publication Award was presented to Don Kalb for the book Value and Worthlessness: The Rise of the Populist Right and Other Disruptions in the Anthropology of Capitalism.

26/10/2026

BSAS Seminar with Professor Sandhya Fuchs

On October 8, the department welcomed Professor Sandhya Fuchs from the South Asia Institute at Heidelberg University as part of our BSAS Seminar Series. She spoke about her longstanding research in India and her recent, award-winning book, Fragile Hope: Seeking Justice for Hate Crimes in India (Stanford University Press, 2024). .

Read more about the book: https://www.sup.org/books/anthropology/fragile-hope

20/10/2026

Congratulations to Fartein Hauan Nilsen on successfully defending his PhD thesis at the University of Bergen on 16 October 2026!

01/10/2026

What happens when ethnographic research enters the theater stage? In November you can see the play "Opphold på ubestemt tid" at Cornerteateret in Bergen. The play is based on ethnographic poetry written by Kari Anne Drangsland, based on her long-time research on Norwegian migration regulation. Drangslands' text has been adapted for the stage by playwright and director Vibeke Flesland Havre.

The play runs for four days in November. Read more and buy tickets here: https://dns.no/forestillinger/opphold-pa-ubestemt-tid/

After the performance on Saturday 15.11 there will be a panel conversation with Drangsland and invited scholars (t.b.a).

Premiere 12. november Cornerteatret

01/10/2026

Last week, we had the pleasure of hosting Professor Harri Englund from the University of Cambridge for the 2026 Fredrik Barth Memorial Lecture. In his lecture, Professor Englund brought his long-standing engagement with questions of rights and responsibilities into conversation with Barth’s work on ecology and social life, exploring the climate crisis as, fundamentally, a crisis of obligation. Drawing on his recent ethnographic fieldwork in Malawi as well as a critical engagement with contemporary anthropological theory, Englund made a compelling case for an anthropology that places at its centre a deceptively simple yet profound question: what do we owe to one another, and to the other-than-human world? In doing so, he highlighted the distinctive contribution anthropology can make to understanding, and, in turn, responding to the current climate crisis.

25/09/2026

A fantastic Bergen Anthropology Day 2026 featuring a range of presentations showcasing exciting new projects from anthropologists at Bergen Global CMI/UiB, Universitetsmuseet i Bergen and our department. Thank you all for attending!

22/09/2026

Bergen Pacific Studies recently hosted the seminar“Locating the Political in the Pacific”, bringing together researchers from Bergen and international institutions to explore contemporary political realities across Oceania: https://www4.uib.no/en/research/research-groups/bergen-pacific-studies-research-group/featured/exploring-political-realities-in-oceania

26/06/2026

We are hiring an for an open PhD position!

Details below, deadline 15 September. Please share widely.

Job title: PhD position at the Department of Social Anthropology (304462), Employer: University of Bergen, Deadline: Tuesday, September 15, 2026

19/06/2026

Habitable Air Project (University of Bergen) is pleased to share a call for participation in the upcoming conference and Ph.D. workshop: Climate Change in Changing Times in Paris, France, from 30 September – 2 October 2026.

Hosted by the Habitable Air Project at the University of Bergen (UiB), led by Dr. Kerry Ryan Chance and funded by the European Commission and the Research Council of Norway, this conference and Ph.D. workshop focuses on climate change in times of rapid transformation in politics, economies, and ever...