Thematic Section Articles 23 Public Anthropology in the 21st Century, with Some Examples from Norway Thomas Hylland Eriksen DOI: 10.21104/CL.2016.1.01 Abstract Although there seems to be broad agreement within the discipline about the desirability of a public anthropology, there is less certainty, or agreement, not only about how to achieve it in a responsible way but also about its very raison- d’être. What should an anthropology which engages closely with non-academic publics seek to achieve? Starting with a historical overview, the article argues that the lack of a clear societal task or assignment liberates anthropology from problem solving for the state, enabling it to stimulate the collective imagination by making bold comparisons and unexpected conjectures. The empirical examples from Norway show how public anthropologists can successfully mix the ‘light’ and the ‘heavy’ in getting their argument across and raising anthropological issues while also engaging with a broad, non-academic public. Keywords public anthropology, Norway, history of anthropology, interdisciplinarity. The article is based on a keynote speech given by the author at the EASA symposium ‘Making anthropology matter’, Vila Lanna, Prague, 14–15 October 2015, with the support of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the Czech Association for Social Anthropology. Contact Prof. Thomas Hylland Eriksen, University of Oslo, Department of Social Anthropology, Norway; e-mail: t.h.eriksen@ sai.uio.no; http://hyllanderiksen.net. Jak citovat / How to cite Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. (2016). Public Anthropology in the 21st Century, with Some Examples from Norway. Český lid 103, 23–36. doi:http:// dx.doi.org/10.21104/CL.2016.1.01