Department of social anthropology seminar with Halvard Vike

The Department of Social Anthropology has the pleasure to invite you to a seminar with Halvard Vike from the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo. He will present the following paper:


"Egalitarianism, Autonomy, Market and State"

Abstract
In "Anarchic Solidarity: Autonomy, Equality, and Fellowship in Southeast Asia" (2011), Thomas Gibson and Kenneth Sillander state that "modern individuals and families look in many ways a lot more like the individuals and families discussed in this volume (where anarchic solidarity" prevails) than they look like the ones produced by most agricultural societies since the neolithic revolution".

In my seminar presentation, I intend to take "anarchic solidarity" as a point of departure for an exploration of modern egalitarianism. If we understand egalitarianism as some specific set of forms of institutionalized social practices that somehow prevents personal dependence from developing, rather than as a bundle of values, we may find analytically fruitful ways to conceptualize the many varied forms egalitarianism actually take, and the various ways in which people balance autonomy with mutual obligations. The institutional mechanics of states and markets are crucial in this regard, and hence a theory of modern egalitarianism need to be based on empirical data from a wide variety of social contexts, both formal and informal.

Bionote

Halvard Vike is professor of anthropology, University of Oslo. His research interests include political anthropology, anthropology & history, organizations & bureaucracy, and cognitive anthropology. His publications include Maktens samvittighet (Gyldendal akademisk 2002), "Reidar Grønhaugs metode: en kraftlinje i norsk  sosialantropologi" (Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift 2011) and "Cultural Models, Power, and Hegemony" (in A Companion to Cognitive Anthropology, Wiley-Blackwell 2011).

All interested are welcome!

Best regards
BSAS Comittee