Anthropology on Air

Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen

Anthropology on Air is a podcast brought to you by the Social Anthropology department at the University of Bergen in Norway. Each season, we bring you conversations with inspiring thinkers from the anthropology world and beyond. The music in the podcast is made by Victor Lange, and the episodes are hosted and produced by Sidsel Marie Henriksen and Sadie Hale. You can follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anthropologyonair. Or visit www.uib.no/antro, where you can find more information on the ongoing work and upcoming events at the department.

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20 episodes
Updated February 13

Episodes20

Newest first

February 13 · 58 min
Digestive Belonging, Trans-Species Sensing & Care in America’s Dairyland
In this episode, we speak with Assistant Professor of Environmental Humanities at the University of Copenhagen, Katy Overstreet. Katy is coordinator for the Landscapes, Senses, and Ecological Research Cluster as well as a core-member of the Centre for Sustainable Futures – both located at the University of Copenhagen. Katy’s core fields of research include multispecies ethnography, environmental anthropology, feminist STS, and agrarian political economy, and she has written on themes such as farm animal welfare, foodways, bioindustrialisation, technoscience, trans-species sensory worlds, and care. Her main ethnographic fieldsites include the midwestern dairy worlds of the United States, and various sites in Denmark including pig farms, an insect farm, and a former brown coal mine. Across these sites, Katy has worked with a lot of different co-species social formations and technoscientifically modulated ways of living and dying in agriculture, and in today’s episode, she will speak to some of these, focusing on the relations between microbes, cows, and humans in raw milk consumption, production, and politics. The basis for our conversation is a talk that Katy gave on the day before we recorded the podcast as part of the BSAS seminar series. Her talk was titled ‘Digestive belonging: a microbial ethnography of raw milk in America’s Dairyland’. In the podcast, Katy unravels the notion of ‘digestive belonging’ in this ethnographic context, connecting it to farmlife, microbes, social landscapes, pasteurization politics, and rural nostalgia among other things. We further discuss different modes of care in animal farming practices, the cultivation of trans-species sensing, and the idea of ‘positive animal welfare’. The podcast was recorded in October 2025 when Katy was in Bergen to give a presentation as part of the Bergen Social Anthropology Seminar series. Resources: Katy Overstreet’s research profile Articles mentioned, authored by Katy: Digestive Belonging: A Microbial Ethnography of Raw Milk in America’s Dairyland (2026) Be the boar: sex, sows, and courtship on a Danish pig farm (2022) How to Taste Like a Cow: Cultivating Shared Sense in Wisconsin Dairy Worlds (2021) EU funded Cost Action project LIFT aimed at ‘Lifting farm animal lives’ that Katy participates in: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dec 8, 2025 · 1 hr 11 min
“Rurality 2.0”: How City Migrants are Reshaping Norway’s Rural Regions with Tom Bratrud
In today’s episode, we talk to Tom Bratrud about his ongoing, long-term work with city-dwellers who migrate to rural parts of Norway. This research forms the basis of Tom’s forthcoming book project, which has the working title Rurality 2.0: Redefining Urban-Rural Divides in the Mountains of Norway. Tom Bratrud is Associate Professor in Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen. His research investigates social life, political dynamics, value(es), religion/worldviews, emerging technologies, environmental issues and rural-urban relations. Prior to his work in his home valley of Valdres in southern Norway, he conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Vanuatu in the South-Pacific—resulting in his first monograph Fire on the Island: Fear, Hope and a Christian Revival in Vanuatu (Berghahn 2022). Tom is the co-convenor of European Association of Social Anthropology (EASA)’s Future Anthropologies Network. Just after we spoke, Tom was also awarded the inaugural Thomas Hylland Eriksen Memorial Prize, presented during the Norwegian Anthropological Association’s Conference in Oslo at the end of October 2025. In explaining their decision, the jury commented that Bratrud “unites global and local perspectives and shows how social anthropological approach and methodology become a key to understanding ongoing change.” Tom Bratrud is Associate Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen. Tom Bratrud receives the Thomas Hylland Eriksen Memorial Prize. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sep 23, 2025 · 43 min
#23 Amber, China & Geological Anthropology w/ Alessandro Rippa
In this episode, we speak with Alessandro Rippa about amber – a fossilised resin that not only allow us a glimpse into prehistoric lifeforms and climatic conditions millions of years ago but also works as an entry point into understanding current political, scientific, and commercial frictions. Alessandro is Associate Professor at the Department of Social Anthropology, at the University of Oslo, where he leads the ERC Starting Grant project called “Amber Worlds: A Geological Anthropolo...
Mar 25, 2025 · 55 min
#22 Ethnographic Poetry & Migration w/ Hans Lucht
In this episode, we are in company with Hans Lucht to talk about ethnographic poetry. Hans is a senior researcher, and the head of migration research at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) in Copenhagen. He has worked with migration for 20 years, with a special focus on undocumented labour-related migration from West Africa to Europe. He has conducted long-term fieldwork in Ghana, Niger, Libya, Italy, and Greece, and his prize-winning monograph ‘Darkness before Daybreak’ chr...
Feb 24, 2025 · 1 hr 31 min
#21 Slavery and Genocide: Jamaica, the US South & the Historical Sociology of Evil w/ Orlando Patterson
Welcome to a special two-episode series of Anthropology on Air! In this and the previous podcast, you will listen to selected parts of a lecture series on the subject of slavery and freedom with professor of Sociology at Harvard University, Orlando Patterson. The lectures were held in December 2023 at various locations in London and were recorded by our colleague, Rolf Scott. This episode features the second lecture given by Patterson titled ‘Slavery and Genocide: Jamaica, the U...
Feb 11, 2025 · 1 hr 53 min
#20 The Paradoxes of Freedom: a Socio-Historical Approach w/ Orlando Patterson
In this and the following podcast, you will listen to selected parts of a lecture series on the subject of slavery and freedom with professor of Sociology at Harvard University, Orlando Patterson. The lectures were held in December 2023 at various locations in London and were recorded by our colleague, Rolf Scott. This episode features the first lecture given by Patterson titled ‘The Paradox of Freedom: a Socio-Historical Approach’, held at the Royal Anthropological Institute in London...
Dec 10, 2024 · 1 hr 9 min
#19 Journeying anew, with or without knowledge w/ Marilyn Strathern
Welcome to a special episode of Anthropology on Air. In this episode you will hear the recordings of the 2024 Fredrik Barth Memorial Lecture, held by Professor Dame Marilyn Strathern. The episode begins with an introduction by Synnøve Bendixen who is head of the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen. Strathern then takes us on a historical and global tour through various ethnographic signposts from the Melanesian Baktaman to current activism, on this tour, inviting us ...
Nov 20, 2024 · 40 min
#18 Muskoxen, reindeer, and performing wilderness in Norway w/Karin Lillevold
In this episode, we speak with Karin Lillevold, a PhD candidate in Cultural Studies at the Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies, and Religion at the University of Bergen. As part of the research project Gardening the Globe, Karin traces relations between three species that are increasingly coming into contact with each another: muskoxen, wild reindeer, and humans. Karin’s interest is in how these relations are managed, as well as the aesthetics and performance of wilderness, i...
Nov 8, 2024 · 49 min
#17 Theopolitical patchworks: Evangelical gangs in Rio de Janeiro w/Martjin Oosterbaan
In this episode we speak with Martjin Oosterbaan. Martjin is professor at the department of Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University, with a chair in the Anthropology of Religion and Security. He has done more than two decades of research in Brazil, focusing on topics such as urban and religious transformation, security and citizenship, and the role of mass media and popular culture in identity formation. He currently leads the ERC Consolidator research project: Sacralizing Security in Meg...
Sep 13, 2024 · 50 min
#16 Birdwatching and loss in the Anthropocene w/Andrew Whitehouse
Welcome to season 4 of Anthropology on Air! With autumn on the way in Bergen, we kick off a new season with a resident of another North Sea city: dr. Andrew Whitehouse. Andrew is a multispecies, environmental anthropologist and a lecturer in anthropology at the University of Aberdeen with a lifelong interest in birdwatching, the main topic of our conversation today. We begin with how Andrew’s own bird-watching – mostly carried out at his local ‘patch’ of Girdle Ness, a promontory next to Aber...
Jun 26, 2024 · 47 min
#15 Public affection, morality police & gendered violence in Mumbai w/Atreyee Sen
In this episode, the finale to season 3, we speak with Atreyee Sen, Associate Professor at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen. Our topic of discussion is a talk Atreyee gave at our department entitled, ‘No city for lovers: Urban poverty, public romance and violent moral policing of lower-class female youth in Mumbai’, which is based on her award-winning article in the interdisciplinary journal Critical Asian Studies. In it, Atreyee explores the aggressive spatial m...
Jun 7, 2024 · 1 hr 4 min
#14 Technoscience & the limits of life w/Martin Eggen Mogseth & Fartein Hauan Nilsen
In this episode, we speak with Martin Eggen Mogseth and Fartein Hauan Nilsen about their first edited volume, Limits of Life: Reflections on Life, Death, and the Body in the Age of Technoscience (Berghahn Books, 2024). The book explores how fundamental concepts such as life, birth, selfhood, religion, death, and ancestry are being reshaped in an era of rapid technological changes, from a transhumanist movement seeking to disrupt death, to digital avatars ‘replicating’ deceased loved ones and ...
May 7, 2024 · 1 hr 2 min
#13 Nuclear waste management & the anthropology of infrastructures w/Penny Harvey
In this episode of Anthropology on Air, we speak with Penny Harvey, Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester in the UK. Penny is a Fellow of the British Academy, of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and the Academia Europaea. Penny is a highly influential thinker on the topic of infrastructures. She is well known for her 2015 book about highway-building in South America, Roads: An Anthropology of Infrastructure and Expertise (Cornell UP), which she co-wrote...
Apr 23, 2024 · 58 min
#12 Masculinity, far-right ideology & militarised policing in Rio de Janeiro w/Tomas Salem
In this special episode, we speak with Tomas Salem, a PhD fellow in our own department of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen. We do a deep dive on some of the themes covered in Tomas’s first book, Policing the Favelas in Rio de Janeiro: Cosmologies of War and the Far-Right (Palgrave Macmillian, 2024), which is released this week. Based on fieldwork Tomas conducted in 2015 when he was a Master’s student here, the book explores the links between militarized policing and far-right i...
Apr 8, 2024 · 44 min
#11 Water justice, activism, and the Rights of Nature movement w/Andrea Muehlebach
To kick off season three of Anthropology on Air, we speak with Andrea Muehlebach. Andrea is Professor of Maritime Anthropology and Cultures of Water at the University of Bremen in Germany, where she also leads the Bremen NatureCultureLab. She was visiting Bergen to deliver a talk entitled, “Do Waves Have Rights?” The Rights of Nature movement insists that “nature has a dignity, outside and in excess of its use to humans,” Andrea explains. In this conversation, we discuss Andrea’s current rese...
Dec 19, 2023 · 43 min
#10 Sensing God, doing magic & kindling anomalous experience through transformative practice w/Tanya Luhrmann
Tanya Luhrmann is Albert Ray Lang Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University, with a courtesy appointment in Psychology, and an elected member of the American Philosophical Society. Her work focuses on the edge of experience: on voices, visions, the world of the supernatural and the world of psychosis. She has conducted ethnographic work among groups such as evangelic Christians, American Santerians, Zoroastrians in India, magicians in England, and people hearing voices across cul...
Nov 29, 2023 · 39 min
#9 Rituals, social cohesion & the theory of modes of religiosity w/Harvey Whitehouse
In this episode, you will meet professor at the University of Oxford, Harvey Whitehouse. Harvey is the director of the Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion, he is Statutory Chair of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford, and a Professorial Fellow of Magdalen College. Harvey has worked extensively with rituals since his first long-term fieldwork in Papua New Guinea in 1980s. His list of publications includes myriads of interdisciplinary contributions, articles, and edited volumes ...
Nov 14, 2023 · 41 min
#8 Contemporary hunter-gatherer communities, Ju/’hoansi, indigenous rights & knowledge systems w/Jennifer Hays
In this episode you will meet Jennifer Hays, who is professor in social anthropology at the University of Tromsø (UiT) – the Arctic University of Norway. Jennifer has been working with hunter-gatherer San Populations in southern Africa for 25 years, as a researcher, and as a consultant for governmental bodies and local and international NGOs. She is, among other things, a founding member of the Hunter Gatherer Education Research and Advocacy Group (HG-Edu), a board member of the Kalahar...
Oct 24, 2023 · 48 min
#7 Human Rights, Islam, Secularism & Sudan w/Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im
This episode is the second of two podcasts focusing on the longstanding partnership between Bergen and Khartoum. In the episode you will meet, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, who visited Bergen in October 2023 to give the keynote lecture at a 3-day symposium that marked the 60-year anniversary of this collaboration. An-Na’im is Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law at Emory Law, associated professor in the Emory College of Arts and Sciences, and senior fellow of the Center for the Study of...
Oct 24, 2023 · 51 min
#6 Sudan & Norway Academic Collaboration: 60 years of Bonds and Beyond w/Munzoul Assal & Leif Manger
This episode is the first of two podcasts focusing on the longstanding partnership between Bergen and Khartoum. The first episode provides a historical view into some of the main characteristics and effects of the academic collaborations between these two cities. The second episode features an interview with Sudanese professor of law, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, who offers a framework for how we can think about the past and imagine the future of the people of Sudan. In this episode, you ...