Our aim

It is our aim to continue to make anthropology relevant through a critical and constructive engagement with contemporary social and cultural issues.  This engagement can only be truly valuable as long as it insists on solid and independent basic research that seeks to understand both the fundamental conditions and the variety of human existence and sociality. 

Basic research

Basic research at the Section encompasses all dimensions of the anthropological discipline: a broad engagement with cross-disciplinary theories about what it means to be human; detailed methodological work and reflections on the basic and changing conditions of fieldwork; thourough engagement with thematic and regional specialties; as well as continuing experimentation with anthropological forms of representation in writing, exhibitions, audio-visual forms as well as through the Internet.

Regional expertise

The researchers at the Section have regional expertise in Africa, the Artic, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and the Pacific.