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Bjørn Enge Bertelsen's picture
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  • E-mailbjorn.bertelsen@uib.no
  • Phone+47 55 58 93 22+47 411 03 883
  • Visitor Address
    Fosswinckelsgate 6, 8. etasje
    Bergen
    Room 
    824
  • Postal Address
    Postboks 7802
    5020 Bergen

Starting in 2022 and until end 2025, I will combine working as Academic Director of the Holberg Prize in a 50 per cent position with my work as Professor of social anthropology at the Department of social anthropology.

I am a social anthropologist and in my research I work mainly on Southern Africa and Mozambique. Particular interests include the issues of inequality, egalitarianism, urban transformation, future practices, violence, state, memory and tradition within political anthropology.

In the period October 2018 until end 2023, I am the project leader and PI for a large-scale research project funded by the Norwegian Research Council entitled "Enclaving: Patterns of global futures in three African cities". The project will probe urban developments in Accra, Johannesburg and Maputo in relation to the formation, trajectories and dynamics of enclaving and it has researchers from Ghana, Mozambique, Norway, South Africa and United Kingdom as participants. I am also involved in the research group "Egalitarian Futures Research Group (FUTURES)" at the Department, in addition to participate in the two research projects "God, Gas, and Grievance? Understanding Northern Mozambique's New Islamist War" hosted by Christian Michelsen Institute and "Gas Gospels: Un/Sustainable Development and Environmental Risk in Mozambique" hosted by School of Global Studies, Universitety of Gothenburg.

From October 2019 until 1. January 2022 I was the Executive Director of GRIP (Global Research Programme on Inequality) -- a global research programme on inequality tied to both the International Science Council and the University of Bergen.

In March 2014 I started as Associate Professor (from August 2016 as Professor) at the Department and in the period until May 2019 I worked work mainly with Bruce Kapferer's large ERC-funded project on Egalitarianism: Forms, Processes, Comparisons. From August 2010 to end February 2014 I worked on my postdoctoral research project entitled "Social imaginaries of death, suffering and accumulation. Urban spaces of insecurity and poverty in Mozambique and Zimbabwe".

During the spring of 2010 I completed my PhD project on colonial and postcolonial politics, state formation and the traditional field in Mozambique initiated in Sept. 2004. 17 April 2010 I defended my PhD thesis entitled Violent becomings.State formation and the traditional field in colonial and postcolonial Mozambique.

Prior to my PhD project, I wrote a Master’s thesis (Cand. Polit.) in Social anthropology at UiB entitled "'Till the soil but do not touch the bones'. Memories of violence in Mozambican re-constructive practices" (2002). The thesis sought to explore the social impact and contemporary importance of violence related to Mozambique’s civil war from 1976/77 to 1992 as well as to identify post-conflict processes of dealing with such violence.

Selected recent English language communication/events for a broader audience

2023 Interview on the Holberg Prize and own research. The Chinese news site "The Paper" (text in Mandarin), 19.09.23.

2023 Presenter, moderator and host for a number of events during the Holberg Week, 7.-12.06.2023.

2020 Presenter in virtual seminar "Mozambique: Insurgency in a Resource Rich Former Donor Darling" organized by Carmeliza Rosário. 3 December 2020, Bergen Global.

2020 Moderator and leader of the discussion during the opening session entitled “The social (human) sciences and the SDGs in the Anthropocene” of the Day Zero of the SDG Bergen 2020 conference. 5 February 2020, University of Bergen.

2019 Interview with the 2019 Holberg Prize laureate Paul Gilroy for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. Broadcasted 26 October 2019 and available for streaming (from Norwegian IP addresses). Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation.

2019 [Together with Ernesto Séman] "Histories of emancipation and slavery in the Caribbean. In the work of Stuart Hall and beyond. A conversation with Prof. David Scott" (Columbia University), Litteraturhuset in Bergen, 17 October 2019.

2019 Book launch of "Poverty as Ideology. Rescuing Social Justice from Global Development Agendas" and on-stage interview with Martin Fischer, Bergen Global, 14 Mai 2019.

2019 [Together with Yael Harlap] Trumplandia! An open conversation with Prof. Carolyn Rouse (Princeton University), Litteraturhuset in Bergen, 24 April 2019.

2018 [Together with Yael Harlap and Rand Gressgård] "An open conversation with professor Paul Gilroy", Litteraturhuset in Bergen, 19 April 2018.

2014 [Together with Sindre Bangstad] Anthropology and the war against terror [Antropologien og krigen mot terror]. A conversation with David Price, Litteraturhuset in Oslo, 20 May 2014.

2012 "Moving at the margins to re-centre anthropology. Interview with Bruce Kapferer". Interview done with Bruce Kapferer for a history of the discipline project organized by the Norwegian Anthropological Association.

Spring 20: Guest lecture "Urbanisering i det globale sør" at Volda University College (Høgskulen i Volda), 18 March 2020

Autumn 18 and 19: Guest lecture "Uprisings, resistiance and postcolonial politics" on the SANT 105 “Power: Its articulations and disguises" course, UiB

Spring 18: Course leader (together with Knut Rio) and lectures on SANT 280-13 "The Frontier of Anthropological Research: Experiments in Egalitarianism", UiB

Autumn 17: Guest lecture "Uprisings, resistiance and postcolonial politics [in Norwegian]"on the SANT 105 “Makt: Uttrykk og tilsløring [Power: Expressions and concealment]" course, UiB

Spring 13: Course leader and lectures SANT 322 "Anthropology, Intervention and Development", UiB

Autumn 12: Course leader SANT 307 "Contested Resources: Ecological Anthropology in Global Perspective", including lectures and examination, UiB

Spring 11: Course leader SANT 303 "Project Proposal and Project Seminar for the Anthropology of Development", including lectures, UiB

Autumn 10: 3 lectures SANT 304 "Introducing Anthropology and its Subjects: History, Poverty and Social Transformation", UiB

Autumn 10: Course leader SANT 307 "Contested Resources: Ecological Anthropology in Global Perspective", including lectures and examination, UiB

Spring 10: Examiner bachelor level course "Anthropology, intervention and development" (SANT 220), UiB

01.01.09-28.02.09: Assistant professor [universitetslektor], UiB

Autumn 08: Supervision of 11 bachelor-level students in anthropology (SANT 250), including also examination, UiB

Autumn 08: Organizer/lecturer bachelor level course (SANT 250) in essay-writing in anthropology including teaching, supervision and examination, UiB

Spring 08: Supervision of 20 bachelor-level students in anthropology (SANT 250), including also examination, UiB

Spring 07: Organizer/lecturer bachelor level course (SANT 112) on the regional ethnography of Southern Africa, including examination, UiB

Autumn 06: Supervision of 2 bachelor-level students (SANT 250) in anthropology, UiB

Autumn 06: Organizer/lecturer bachelor level course (SANT 250) in essay-writing in anthropology including teaching, supervision and examination, UiB

Spring 06: Supervision of 16 bachelor level students in anthropology, UiB

Spring 06: Organizer/lecturer bachelor level course (SANT 250) in essay-writing in anthropology including teaching, supervision and examination, UiB

Autumn 05: Organizer/tutor, M. Phil course "Anthropology and development", UiB

Spring 05: Examination M. Phil course SANT 308, UiB

Autumn 04: Organizer/tutor, M. Phil course "Anthropology and development", UiB

Autumn 03: Organizer/tutor, bachelor level seminar on essay writing in anthropology, UiB

Spring 02: Organizer/tutor, bachelor level seminar on essay writing in anthropology, UiB

Spring 00 and spring 01: Organizer/tutor, bachelor level seminar on anthropological literature, UiB

 

Examination and supervision
2004-2019
: Examiner for a total of 36 Master degree and M. Phil dissertations at the Dept. of Social Anthropology, UiB

2004-2019: Evaluator of a total of 18 pre-fieldwork project descriptions for Master degree and M.Phil students, UiB

2010-: Completed supervision of a total of 14 MPHL and MA students and 2 PhD students. As per May 2020 I am supervising 3 MA students, being the main supervisor for 4 PhD and the co-supervisor for another 2 PhD students, UiB

Books and special issues
2022a [co-edited with Trine Olsen Møgster] Urban polarisering [in Norwegian]. Special issue of Norsk antropologisk tidsskrift, 33(3).

2022b [co-edited with Knut M. Rio and Bruce Kapferer] Egalitarian life and Life Forms: Ethnographic Perspectives on Political Experimentation. Special issue of Social Analysis, 66(3): 1-168. [Open access]

2022c [co-edited with Sindre Bangstad] Achille Mbembe: Nekropolitikk og andre essays [in Norwegian]. Oslo: Cappelen.

2021a [co-edited with Ruy Llera Blanes] Utopian confluences: anthropological mappings of generative politics. Special section of Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, 29(1): 5-173.

2019a [co-edited with Sheila Pereira Khan and Maria Paula Meneses] Mozambique on the Move: Challenges and Reflections. Leiden: Brill, pp. 294. [Open Access

2016a Violent Becomings: State Formation, Sociality, and Power in Mozambique. New York: Berghahn Books, p. 320. [Open Access]

2016b [co-edited with Vigdis Broch-Due] Violent Reverberations. Global Modalities of Trauma. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 279.

2016c [co-edited Synnøve Bendixsen] Critical Anthropological Engagements in Human Alterity and Difference. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 303.

2015a [co-edited with Kirsten Alsaker Kjerland] Navigating Colonial Orders: Norwegian Entrepreneurship in Africa and Oceania. New York: Berghahn Books, p. 404.

2009a [co-edited with Bruce Kapferer] Crisis of the state. War and social upheaval. New York: Berghahn Books, p. 330.

 

Journal articles

[Forthcoming 2024, with Egna Rachel Sidumo] “Between Resilience and Radicalisation.Reassessing the trajectory of Internally Displaced Populations in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique”. Kronos: Southern African Histories, 48(1).

2022d [with Trine Olsen Møgster] Urban polarisering: Antropologiske bidrag [in Norwegian]. Norsk antropologisk tidsskrift, 33(3): 191-209.

2022e [with Abel Março Nassone] Ambulerende omsorg. Eller, spekulasjon i møte med byers oppløsning og framtidens slutt i Maputo [in Norwegian]. Norsk antropologisk tidsskrift, 33(3): 210-226.

2022f [with Knut M. Rio and Bruce Kapferer] An introduction to egalitarian thought and dynamics. Social Analysis, 66(3): 1-21. [Open access]

2022g Egalitarian lives and violence: Community policing in Mozambique. Social Analysis, 66(3): 104-125. [Open access]

2022h Civil war and the non-linearity of time. Approaching a Mozambican Politics of Irreconciliation. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 28(S1): 50-64. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.13753. [Open access]

2022i [with Ruy L. Blanes] Cracks in the system and anthropology. A response to Bråten. Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, 30(1): 140-147. doi:10.3167/saas.2022.300111

2022j [with Austin Dziwornu Ablo] A shadowy 'City of Light': Private urbanism, large-scale land acquisitionand dispossession in Ghana. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research: 1-17. DOI:10.1111/1468-2427.13085

2021b [with Jason Sumich] Just out of reach: Imminence, meaning and political ontology in Mozambique. Current Anthropology, 62(3): 287-308. DOI: 10.1086/714268.

2021c A lesser human? Utopic registers of urban reconfiguration in Maputo, Mozambique. Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, 29(1): 87-107 [Open Access]

2021d [with Ruy Llera Blanes] Utopian confluences: anthropological mappings of generative politics. Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, 29(1): 5-17. [Open Access]

2021e "Letter from Maputo: Migration, Ambulation and Urban Reconfiguration". Parangolé 1(1): 86-93.

2020a [with Tomas Salem] Emergent Police States. Racialized pacification and police moralism from Rio’s favelas to Bolsonaro. Conflict and Society, 6(1): 86-107. [Open Access]

2020b [with Morten Nielsen and Jason Sumich] Enclaving: Spatial Detachment as an Aesthetics of Imagination in an urban sub-Saharan African context. Urban Studies, doi.org/10.1177/0042098020916095 .

2019b [with Knut Rio] 1968 and its other worlds: Global events and (anti-)state dynamics in France, Mozambique and Vanuatu. History and Anthropology, 30(5): 622-643. DOI: 10.1080/02757206.2018.1524759 [Open Access]

2019c [with Sindre Bangstad and Heiko Henkel] The politics of affect: Anthropological perspectives on the rise of far-right and right-wing populism in the West. Focaalblog 14 March 2019. [Open Access]

2019d [with Sindre Bangstad and Heiko Henkel] The politics of affect. Perspectives on the rise of the far-right and right-wing populism in the West. Focaal: journal of global and historical anthropology, 83: 98-113. [Open Access]

2018a [with Knut Rio] Anthropology and 1968: Openings and Closures. Anthropology Today, 34(2): 9-13. [Open Access]

2018b [with Inge Tvedten, Fábio Ribeiro and João Graça] Maputo: Ethnography of a Divided City. Journal of Anthropological Films, 2(2), e1571 [Open Access]

2016d Valuable Subversions: Gendered Generativity and Sorcerous Production in Central Mozambique. Valuation Studies, 4(1): 41-66. [Open Access]

2015b "The Spirit of the Laws in Mozambique" by Juan Obarrio. [Review article]. Anthropological Quarterly, 88(2):565-575.

2014a Effervescence and Ephemerality: Popular Urban Uprisings in Mozambique. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology, DOI:10.1080/00141844.2014.929596. [Open Access]

2014b [with Inge Tvedten and Sandra Roque] Engaging, Transcending and Subverting Dichotomies: Discursive Dynamics of Maputo’s Urban Space. Urban Studies, 51(13):2752-2769, DOI: 10.1177/0042098013512872.

2012a Moving at the margins to re-centre anthropology. Interview with Bruce Kapferer. Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift 23(2): 182-197. [See also fully referenced version of the same interview available here]

2011a 'Entering the red sands'. The corporality of punishment and imprisonment in Chimoio, Mozambique. Journal of Southern African Studies, 37(3): 611-626.

2010a [with Sindre Bangstad] 'Heart of darkness re-invented? A tale of Norwegian ex-soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Anthropology Today, 26(1): 8-12.

2009b Multiple sovereignties and summary justice in Mozambique. A critique of some legal anthropological termsSocial analysis, 53(3): 123-147.

2007a 'Å dø her koster ikke noe'. Vold, rettsantropologi og suverenitet i det postkoloniale Mosambik ['To die here does not cost much'. Violence, legal anthropology and sovereignty in postcolonial Mozambique]. Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift, 18(3-4):280-295. [in Norwegian]

2006a [with Kjetil Fosshagen, Anette Fagertun and Inger Lise Teig] Antropologien og staten. En innledning. [Anthropology and the state. An introduction] Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift, 17(3-4):186-200. [in Norwegian]



Chapters in anthologies
2022k [with Sindre Bangstad] Å tenke verden fra Afrika: En introduksjon til Achille Mbembe. In Sindre Bangstad and Bjørn Enge Bertelsen (red.) Achille Mbembe: Nekropolitikk og andre essays. Oslo: Cappelens upopulære skrifter, pp. 7-28. [in Norwegian]

2020c [with Sindre Bangstad] Mørkets hjerte skapt igjen og igjen. Fortellingene om eks-soldatene Joshua French og Tjostolv Moland i Kongo. In Marta Tveit (ed) Maskespillet i Kongo. Hvordan løslatelse av to norske leiesoldater ble et nasjonalt anliggende. Oslo: Frekk forlag, pp. 150-167. [In Norwegian]

2019e From Celebrating Female Emancipation to Emplacing Emperor Ngungunyane: Remoulding the Past in Mozambican National Narratology. In Sheila Pereira Khan, Maria Paula Meneses and Bjørn Enge Bertelsen (eds) Mozambique on the Move: Challenges and Reflections. Leiden: Brill, pp. 76-95. [Open Access]

2019f [with Sheila Pereira Khan and Maria Paula Meneses] Introduction: Situating Mozambican Histories, Epistemologies, and Potentialities. In Sheila Pereira Khan, Maria Paula Meneses and Bjørn Enge Bertelsen (eds) Mozambique on the Move: Challenges and Reflections. Leiden: Brill, pp. 1-38. [Open Access]

2019g Life at the End of Time: A Note on Comparison, ‘Pentecost’ and the Trobriands. In Annelin Eriksen, Ruy Llera Blanes and Michelle MacCarthy (eds) Going to Pentecost: An Experimental Approach to Studies in Pentecostalism. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 193-200 [Open Access]

2018c Composing texts and the composition of uprisings: Notes on writing the postcolonial political. In Morten Nielsen and Nigel Rapport (eds) The Composition of Anthropology: How Anthropological Texts Are Written. London: Routledge, pp. 56-72.

2017a German Pentecostal Witches and Communists: The violence of purity and sameness. In Knut Rio, Michelle MacCarthy and Ruy Llera Blanes (eds) Pentecostalism and Witchcraft in Melanesia and Africa. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 37-65. [Open Access]2017b Efervescência efémera: levantamentos populares urbanos em Moçambique. In Luís de Brito (ed.) Agora eles têm medo de nós! - Uma colectânea de textos sobre as revoltas populares em Moçambique (2008-2012). Maputo: IESE, pp. 124-152 [Open Access]

2016e [with Vigdis Broch-Due] Violent Reverberations: An Introduction to our Trauma Scenarios. In Vigdis Broch-Due and Bjørn Enge Bertelsen (eds) Violent Reverberations. Global Modalities of Trauma New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1-21.

2016f Multisemic speech genres as vehicles for re-inscribing meaning in post-conflict societies. A Mozambican case. In Vigdis Broch-Due and Bjørn Enge Bertelsen (eds) Violent Reverberations. Global Modalities of Trauma. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 193-217.

2016g [with Synnøve Bendixsen] Recalibrating alterity, difference, ontology. Anthropological engagements with human and non-human worlds. In Bjørn Enge Bertelsen and Synnøve Bendixsen (eds) Critical Anthropological Engagements in Human Alterity and Difference.  New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1-40.

2015c Navigating Colonial Orders: Norwegian Entrepreneurship in Africa and Oceania, ca. 1850 to 1950. In Kirsten Alsaker Kjerland and Bjørn Enge Bertelsen (eds) Navigating Colonial Orders: Norwegian Entrepreneurship in Africa and Oceania. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 1-37.

2015d Colonialism in Norwegian and Portuguese: The Plantation Madal in Mozambique. In Kirsten Alsaker Kjerland and Bjørn Enge Bertelsen (eds) Navigating Colonial Orders: Norwegian Entrepreneurship in Africa and Oceania. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 291-320.

2015e [with Alessandro Zagato]  Introducion. The Event of Charlie Hebdo — Imaginaries of Freedom and Control. In Alessandro Zagato (ed.) The Event of Charlie Hebdo. Imaginaries of Freedom and Control. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 1-11.

2014c Maize mill sorcery. Cosmologies of substance, production and accumulation engaged in central Mozambique. In Allen Abramson and Martin Holbraad (eds) Framing Cosmologies: the Anthropology of Worlds. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 199-220.

2014d El género del derecho: Política, memoria y agencia en los tribunales comunitarios de Mozambique. In Rachel Sieder and John-Andrew McNeish (eds) Justicia de género y pluralidades legales: Perspectivas latinoamericanas y africanas. Mexico City: Centro de investigaciones y estudios superiores en antropología social (CIESAS), pp. 113-146. [Spanish edition of 2013a.]

2013a The gender of law: politics, memory and agency in Mozambican community courts. In Rachel Sieder and John-Andrew McNeish (eds) Gender, Justice and Legal Pluralities. Latin American and African Perspectives. In the series "Law, Development and Globalization". London and New York: Routledge, pp. 82-108.

2010b Securitisation of the social and state transformation from Iraq to Mozambique. In John-Andrew McNeish and Jon Harald Sande Lie (eds.), Security and development. Critical interventions series. Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 84-98.

2009c Kolonialisme på portugisisk og norsk. Plantasjen Madal i Mosambik ['Colonialism - Portuguese and Norwegian. The Madal plantation in Mozambique'], in Kirsten Alsaker Kjerland and Knut Rio (eds.) Kolonitid. Nordmenn på eventyr og big business i Afrika og Stillehavet. Oslo: Scandinavian Academic Press, pp. 251-276. [in Norwegian]

2009d Sorcery and death squads. Transformations of state, sovereignty, and violence in postcolonial Mozambique, in Bruce Kapferer and Bjørn Enge Bertelsen (eds.) Crisis of the state. War and social upheaval. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 210-240.

2009e [with Bruce Kapferer] The crisis of power and reformations of the state in globalizing realities, in Bruce Kapferer and Bjørn Enge Bertelsen (eds.) Crisis of the state. War and social upheaval. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 1-26.

2007b Violence, sovereignty and tradition. Understanding death squads and sorcery in Chimoio, Mozambique, in Armando Marques Guedes and Maria José Lopes (eds.) State and traditional law in Angola and Mozambique. Coimbra: Edições Almedina, pp. 201-261.

2004a 'It will rain until we are in power'. Floods, elections and memory in Mozambique, in Harri Englund and Francis B. Nyamnjoh (eds.) Rights and the Politics of Recognition in Africa. Postcolonial Encounters Series. London and New York: Zed Books, pp. 169-191.

2004b 'The traditional lion is dead'. The ambivalent presence of tradition and the relation between politics and violence in Mozambique, in Camille Goirand (ed.) Lusotopie 2003. Violence et politique dans les espaces lusophones. Paris: Éditions Karthala and Centre d'Étude d'Afrique Noire (CEAN), pp. 263-281.

 

Book reviews, dictionary entries, reports and other shorter texts

[Forthcoming] "Global Revolutionary Aesthetics and Politics after ‘68" edited by Martin Munro, William J. Cloonan, Barry J. Faulk, and Christian P. Weber (book review). Journal of Postcolonial Writing.

2024 "Nourishing Life. Foodways and Humanity in an African Town" by Arianna Huhn (book review). Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 30(1): 18-19. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.14087

2020d "Age of Concrete: Housing and the Shape of Aspiration in the Capital of Mozambique" by David Morton (book review). The American Historical Review, 125(5): 2048-2049. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhaa422

2020e "Cities of Entanglements. Social Life in Johannesburg and Maputo through Ethnographic Comparison" by Barbara Heer (book review). Anthropos, 115(2): 589-590.

2020f "Faith in Flux. Pentecostalism and Mobility in Rural Mozambique" by Devaka Premawardhana (book review). Journal of Religion in Africa, 48(4): 396-398. DOI:10.1163/15700666-12340152.

2020g "Koloniale trekk ved French og Moland-dekningen" (op-ed). Morgenbladet, 18 March 2020.

2020h "Afrika: Fra de første mennesker til idag" by Tore Linné Eriksen (book review). Klassekampen [newspaper], 15.02.20, pp. 12-13.

2020i "Returning Life: Language, Life Force and History in Kilimanjaro" by Knut Christian Myhre (book review). Norsk antropologisk tidsskrift 31(1-2): 151-54.

2020j "Catholicism and the Making of Politics in Central Mozambique, 1940-1986" by Éric Morier-Genoud (book review). Social Sciences and Missions, 33 (1-2): 212-215.

2019h "Bound for Work: Labor, Mobility, and Colonial Rule in Central Mozambique, 1940-1965" by Zachary Kagan Guthrie (book review). American Historical Review, 124(3):1190-1191. (OPEN ACCESS)

2019i [with Thomas Hylland Eriksen] Paul Gilroys optimisme (op-ed). Morgenbladet [newspaper], 15.03.19.

2019j "En ukuelig humanist" [On Paul Gilroy] (op-ed). Klassekampen [newspaper], 03.06.2019.

2018d Foreword, in Bernhard Weimer "Vampires, Jihadists and Structural Violence in Mozambique. Reflections on Violent Manifestations of Local Discontent and their Implications for Peacebuilding". Report available here , pp. 5-5.

2017c "Creating Africas: Struggles over Nature, Conservation and Land" by Knut Nustad (book review). Norsk antropologisk tidsskrift, 28(1): 59-62. DOI:10.18261/ISSN.1504-2898-2017-01-08

2017d "Policing and the politics of order-making", edited by Peter Albrecht and Helene Maria Kyed (book review). African Affairs, 116(462): 152-154. (Advance Access published 15 December 2016 -- available at DOI:10.1093/afraf/adw076)

2017e [with Annelin Eriksen and Knut Rio] Vurderer verden med Vestens verdier (comment). Dagens Næringsliv, 20.10.2017, page 30.

2016h 'In Step with the Times. Mapiko Masquerades of Mozambique' by Paolo Israel (book review). Canadian Journal of History, 51(1): 210-212.

2015f [with Abel Chauque] 'Crime and Security in Maputo, Mozambique.' Cities Alliance and CMI. CMI Brief, vol. 14, no. 3, 4 pages.

2015g [with Abel Chauque] 'Crime e Segurança em Maputo, Moçambique'. Cities Alliance and CMI. CMI Brief, vol. 14, no. 3, 4 pages.

2015h "Strategies for preventing terrorism" by Tore Bjørgo (book review). Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift, 26(1): 75-78.

2015i Anthropology, (in)equality and (in)egalitarianism. A comment on Harri Englund ’s 'Human Rights and African Airwaves: Mediating Equality on the Chichewa Radio'. Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society 40(1): 70-73.

2013b [with Inge Tvedten and Sandra Roque] Género, Classe e Espaço em Maputo, Moçambique Cities Alliance and CMI. CMI Brief, volume 12, no. 7, 4 pages.

2013c [with Inge Tvedten and Sandra Roque] Gender, Class and Space in Maputo, Mozambique. Cities Alliance and CMI. CMI Brief, volume 12, no. 7, 4 pages.

2013d [with Bruce Kapferer] How to approach the state in anthropology? A response to Thomas Blom Hansen. Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift,  24(2):137-139.

2013e [with Inge Tvedten and Sandra Roque] Urban space and poverty in Maputo, Mozambique. Cities Alliance and CMI. CMI Brief, vol. 12, no. 2, 4 pages.

2013f [with Inge Tvedten and Sandra Roque] Espaço Urbano e Pobreza em Maputo, Moçambique. Cities Alliance and CMI. CMI Brief, vol. 12, no. 2, 4 pages.

2012b [with Inge Tvedten] Fremtidens globale byer (op. ed.) Aftenposten [newspaper], 03.12.12.

2012c "Tilbake til Durkheim. Staten og antropologien" by Iver B. Neumann (book review). Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift,  23(2): 198-200.

2012d Eusébio (Eusébio da Silva Ferreira) in Dictionary of African Biography, vol. 2. Edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Emmanuel Akyeampong. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 316-317.

2012e Ngungunyane in Dictionary of African Biography, vol. 4. Edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Emmanuel Akyeampong. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 465-466.

2011b [with Eyolf Jul-Larsen] Social security, poverty dynamics and economic growth in Angola’s smallholder agriculture. A case study of two communities in Huambo province. CMI Report R 2011:5. Bergen: Chr. Michelsen Institute, p. 33.

2011c "Fear of Small Numbers. An Essay on the Geography of Anger" by Arjun Appadurai (book review). PoLAR - Political and Legal Anthropological Review, 34(1):177-179.

2010d [with Sindre Bangstad] Der kannibaler truer? op. ed. Klassekampen [newspaper], 11.02.2010, p. 22-23.

2009f Review article/compte rendu. 'The security-development nexus. Expressions of sovereignty in Southern Africa' by Lars Buur, Steffen Jensen and Finn Stepputat. Lusotopie, 16(2):198-201.

2009g "Langtvekkistan. Grunnlagsproblemer for studiet av asiatiske og afrikanske samfunn" by Arild Engelsen Ruud (book review). Forum for Development Studies, 36(2):213-216.

2008 "På Barheidas tid. Familjekrönika från savannen" by Stig Holmquist and Aud Talle (book review). Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift,  19(2-3):199-200.

2007c [with Bård Kårtveit] Antropologer i krigens frontlinje [op. ed.]. Dagbladet [newspaper], 23.10.07.

2006b [with Sindre Bangstad] Sør-Afrika og "motsatt apartheid" [op. ed.]. Bergens Tidende [newspaper], 15.12.06.

2005 War, peace and development in Mozambique: A critical assessment. Commissioned study for Chr. Michelsen Institute in June 2005 being an assessment of the applicability of Paul Collier et al.'s "Breaking the conflict trap" to the case of Mozambique. Bergen: Chr. Michelsen Institute, p. 83.

 

Theses
2010a Violent becomings.State formation and the traditional field in colonial and postcolonial Mozambique. PhD thesis. Dept. of social anthropology, University of Bergen, p. 362.

2002 Till the soil but do not touch the bones. Memories of violence in Mozambican re- constructive practices. Master thesis in social anthropology. Bergen: University of Bergen, p. 239.



For a list of all publications, papers, interviews and public debates, see the overview in UiB's publications database CRISTIN here.

For an alternative presentation, see http://uib.academia.edu/BjornEngeBertelsen where some unpublished papers are also available.

2018-2024: Project leader for and researcher in the Norwegian Research Council-funded project Enclaving: Patterns of global futures in three African cities (UrbanEnclavingFutures), UiB.

2014-2019: Participant in the ERC-funded project Egalitarianism: Forms, Processes, Comparisons, UiB.

2012-2015: The Ethnography of a Divided City. Socio-Politics, Gender and Poverty in Maputo, CMI.

2011-2016: Participant in the project Gender and Pentecostal Christianity: A comparative analysis of Gender in Pentecostal Christianity with focus on Africa and Melanesia, headed by prof. Annelin Eriksen, UiB.

2010-2014: Social imaginaries of death, suffering and accumulation. Urban spaces of insecurity and poverty in Mozambique and Zimbabwe (postdoctoral project). Dept. of social anthropology, University of Bergen.

2004-2010: An ambivalent heritage: Violent transformations of tradition in local and national contexts in Mozambique (PhD project). Dept. of social anthropology, University of Bergen and Uni Global.

2005-2010: Madal in between the colonial and the postcolonial era. Project under In the wake of colonialism, Uni Global and UiB. 

2009-2011: Participant in the project Poverty reduction and gender justice in contexts of legal pluralism, CMI.

2004-2010: Affiliated with the Challenging the state project at the Dept. of social anthropology, University of Bergen.

Regional focus: Southern Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Africa

Thematic focus: Urban anthropology, future practices, Egalitarianism, state formation, sovereignty, memory, history, violence, war, tradition and traditional authorities, poverty, legal anthropology, political anthropology, political ecology

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