Risks, Raisin Buns and Parenting

What are ‘real’ risks in life? What makes us afraid of the future and how do we perceive uncertainties? These cultural and philosophical questions came to my mind when a father and his three-year-old daughter were having bread and coffee at the bakery.

Erik Bähre • October 17, 2023

Visualising solidarity

At the occasion of the open access launch of his book Ironies of Solidarity: Insurance and Financialisation of Kinship in South Africa (Zed Books, 2020), Erik Bähre reflects on the cover image: What does a man on his own have to do with the solidarity of South African insurance companies?

Erik Bähre • June 14, 2021

Dutch superiority the cause of so many Covid-19 infections?

Some people, including medical experts and politicians, imply that Dutch superiority causes so many Covid-19 infections. Erik Bähre reflects on the nationalist rhetoric that prevents the Netherlands from learning from other countries and undermines the legitimacy of democracy and human rights.

Erik Bähre • October 20, 2020 • 2 comments

Covid-19: a Conversation about Cultural Differences, Nationalism and Care

In this blogpost, Irene Moretti and Erik Bähre have a conversation about the approaches adopted by the Netherlands and Italy to curb the spread of the virus. In doing so, they focus on cultural differences, nationalism and ideas of care.

Irene Moretti and Erik Bähre • March 23, 2020

Greta Thunberg and Nongqawuse: Two sixteen-year-old women challenging the world

Greta Thunberg reminds me of Nongqawuse who, also at the age of sixteen, initiated a movement that attempted to drive white settlers out of nineteenth-century South-Africa.

Erik Bähre • October 07, 2019

A Struggle for Care: Public Health and Private Insurance in Brasília

Access to healthcare takes us to the heart of Brazil’s polarized debate on social justice and inequality. This film explores some of the difficulties people face when they need medical attention and the dilemmas of financing healthcare.

Erik Bähre and Fabíola Gomes • May 23, 2018

Positioning Science: Post-Truth, Back to the Facts, or Morality?

The authority of knowledge, science, and academic institutions is not as self-evident as it maybe was in the past. How to position as scholar in a post-truth world? Should we deal with these challenges by simply studying facts, as some scholars argue?

Erik Bähre • June 29, 2017 • 6 comments

Towards a heterodox and reflexive economics

After the 2008 financial crisis, the call for a more heterogeneous approach to studying and teaching economics intensified. But how can heterodoxy take up a more prominent place in economic science? A Cultural Anthropologist offers three suggestions.

Erik Bähre • October 25, 2016 • 8 comments

Ethnography and the work of the ancestors

Fieldwork makes one think again about one’s own society. This blog is about how fieldwork taught me what ancestors mean in South Africa and forced me to think again about attitudes to ancestors in Europe.

Erik Bähre • April 18, 2016 • 1 comment

leidenanthropologyblog

Erik Bähre

Blogs