The world is overheated. Too full and too fast; uneven and unequal. It is the age of the Anthropocene, of humanity’s indelible mark upon the planet. In short, it is globalisation – but not as we know it.
In this groundbreaking book, Thomas Hylland Eriksen breathes new life into the discussion around global modernity, bringing an anthropologist’s approach to bear on the three interrelated crises of environment, economy and identity. He argues that although these crises are global in scope, they are perceived and responded to locally, and that contradictions abound between the standardising forces of information-age global capitalism and the socially embedded nature of people and local practices.
Carefully synthesising the ethnographic and comparative methods of anthropology with macrosocial and historical material, Overheating offers an innovative new perspective on issues including energy use, urbanisation, deprivation, human (im)mobility, and the spread of interconnected, wireless information technology.
Table of Content
List of Illustrations
Preface
1. Le Monde est Trop Plein
2. A Conceptual Inventory
3. Energy
4. Mobility
5. Cities
6. Waste
7. Information Overload
8. Clashing Scales: Understanding Overheating
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Thomas Hylland Eriksen is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo and former President of the European Association of Social Anthropologists. He is the author of numerous classics of anthropology, including Small Places, Large Issues – 4th Edition (Pluto, 2015) and What is Anthropology? – 2nd Edition (Pluto, 2017).
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