ISP - People

Project Team

“De-naturalizing difference” is the enduring collective focus over a four-year period of a team of about twenty-five experienced anthropologists based at the universities of Bergen and Oslo and at Bergen-based Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI). Together the project team members cover an unparalleled thematic and regional expertise of relevance to this project, both in terms of the geographical coverage and in terms of the forms of difference and inequality included in the collective research experience.

The project is headed by an appointed Steering Group consisting of the Project Director (Knudsen), two members from the host institution (Bringslid og Ødegaard), one Postdoctoral Fellow at the DENAT project (Bendixsen) and one each from the two institutional partners UiO (Melhuus) and CMI (Telle), as well as from SKOK (Jacobsen).

UNIVERSITY OF BERGEN (HOST INSTITUTION)    

• Ståle Knudsen (project director), professor and chair, Department of Social Anthropology (Turkey, Black Sea region, political ecology, fisheries, energy, social movements)
• Edvard Hviding, professor, Department of Social Anthropology (Pacific/Melanesia; kinship, social movements, ecology, colonialism)
• Anne Karen Bjelland, professor, Department of Social Anthropology (Nordic countries; welfare, illness and health, alternative therapies, aging)
• Astrid Blystad, professor of medical anthropology, Department of Public Health (East Africa; medicine and health, aid and intervention, epidemics)
• Tone Bringa, associate professor, Department of Social Anthropology (Bosnia, Balkand, Central Asia; war, violence, states and intervention)
• Mary Bente Bringslid, associate professor, Department of Social Anthropology (Norway and Nordic countries; rural identity, egalitarianism, community politics)
• Vigdis Broch-Due, professor, Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (East Africa, India; poverty, pastoralism, aid and intervention, gender)
• Eldar Bråten, associate professor, Department of Social Anthropology (Indonesia Norway; Islam, mysticism, migration, hierarchy and egalitarianism)
• Annelin Eriksen, professor, Department of Social Anthropology (Pacific/Melanesia;gender, kinship, Christianity, social movements
• Haldis Haukanes, professor, Department of Health Promotion and Development (Eastern Europe; gender and family, food, childhood and youth)
• Bruce Kapferer, distinguished professor emeritus, Department of Social Anthropology (Sri Lanka, India, Australia, Zambia; ritual, violence, ethnicity, sovereignty, the state)
• Anh Nga Longva, professor, Department of Social Anthropology (Middle East, Southeast Asia, Norway; identity, language, migration, ethnicity)
• Knut M. Rio, professor, Bergen University Museum (Pacific/Melanesia; exchange, hierarchy, witchcraft and sorcery, the anthropology of objects, colonialism)
• Cecilie Ødegaard, associate professor, Department of Social Anthropology (Latin America; gender, ethnicity, racism, markets and the state, witchcraft)
• Bjørn Enge Bertelsen, associate professor, Department of Social Anthropology (southern Africa; sovereignty, war, poverty, law)

POST-DOCTORAL FELLOWS AND RESEARCHERS, UIB:

• Synnøve Bendixsen, Department of Social Anthropology (Norway, Germany; Migration, religion, denaturalization, inequality)
• Anette Fagertun, Bergen University College (Indonesia; gender, work, migration, religion)
• Kjetil Fosshagen, Bergen University College (Turkey, Cyprus; sovereignty, Islam, secularism, ethnicity, sacrifice)

UNIVERSITY OF OSLO (INSTITUTIONAL PARTNER):

• Ingjerd Hoém, professor and head of department, Department of Social Anthropology (Pacific/Polynesia; transnationalism, performance, language, ritual, ethnicity, diaspora)
• Christian Krohn-Hansen, professor, Department of Social Anthropology (Caribbean, Latin America; power, violence, hierarchy, migration, nationalism, race)
• Marit Melhuus, professor, Department of Social Anthropology (Latin America, Nordic countries; gender, morality, inequality, reproductive technologies, biopolitics)
• Halvard Vike, professor, Department of Social Anthropology (Norway and Nordic countries; politics and the state, bureaucracy and organizations)
• Kathinka Frøystad, professor, Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages (India; urban life, cosmopolitanism, Hinduism, violence, nationalism, caste and class)

CHR. MICHELSENS INSTITUTE (INSTITUTIONAL PARTNER):

• Are John Knudsen, senior researcher (South Asia and the Middle East, peace, conflict and forced migration)
• Kari Telle, senior researcher and coordinator of anthropology (Indonesia, religion, ritual, popular Islam and Hinduism, religious minorities, violence, security politics, local justice, reconciliation)
• Karin Ask, researcher (South Asia, gender relations and migration patterns)
• Siri Lange, senior researcher (East Africa, Tanzania, health, gender and political processes at the local level)

CENTRE FOR WOMEN'S AND GENDER RESEARCH (INSTITUTIONAL PARTNER):

• Christine Jacobsen, Professor and head of department, Centre for Women’s and Gender Research (Europe; Islam, gender, migration, prostitution)