Thomas Hylland Eriksen's "Engaging anthropology"

antropologi.info had recently two interesting entries concerning the anthropologists' absent from public debates: "Engaging Anthropology" (1) and Engaging Anthropology (2), based on a new book by Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Engaging Anthropology: The Case for a Public Presence . Ok, enough tautology now: chapter 1 of Hylland Eriksen's book is available for reading, conveniently in html, in the author's own web site. Antropologi.info provides a good overview with choice quotes of Hylland Eriksen's arguments for the bigger visibility of anthropologists in public, so I'll present only the first paragraph of the chapter: Anthropology should have changed the world, yet the subject is almost invisible in the public sphere outside the academy. This is puzzling, since a wide range of urgent issues of great social importance are being raised in original and authoritative ways by anthropologists. They should have been at the forefront of public debate about multiculturalism and nationalism, the human aspects of information technology, poverty and economic globalisation, human rights issues and questions of collective and individual identification in the Western world, just to mention a few topical areas. My own comments on the situation here in Finland follow later, I hope... Categories at del.icio.us/hunjang: anthropology ∙ books