Background and activities

I am a social anthropologist and work with:

 

  • The anthropology of technology: What does it mean to be human in the age of technology?
  • Robotization and digitization: Machine systems conquer areas that have previously been the human domain. We need to think anew about what it means to be human.
  • Presence: What does it mean to be present? What does it mean to be present across distance?
  • The control room society and presence: Ever new areas of society are controlled from the control room through the control room’s peculiar ontological relationship between what controls and what is controlled.
  • Collaborative processes and dialogue in work-life and organizations: What does it take to be able to talk to each other across differences?
  • Craft as a form of knowledge and a way of being in the world
  • Climate, environment and cultural change
  • Meeting points between art and research

Short biography

I defended my PhD in 2011 "Meeting with presence: Between form and emptiness in product development, aikido and anthropological understanding". I have previously worked with product development, development of distance meeting technology, performance and studies of religious experiences. I have also researched changes related to climate measures, with special emphasis on the role of craftspeople in the Crafting Climate project. I worked for a period as a contract researcher and studied forms of collaboration and culture in organizations, especially in the construction industry and industrial companies, as well as among control room operators for space operations, with emphasis on operator craftsmanship.

Is currently busy with the project Autowork, where we study robotization, digitization and automation in various industries. It's about understanding the people who work side by side with the robots that will one day take over their jobs. It is about understanding a societal transformation where the human is at stake.

I am also involved in what we call the "classroom laboratory" at the Department of Anthropology, where we explore new forms of learning together with the students.

Scientific, academic and artistic work

Displaying a selection of activities. See all publications in the database

Journal publications

Artistic productions

  • Fyhn, Håkon. (2010) Sniff the rat visits Trondheim; neurons showing the way. Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience. 2010.

Books

  • Fyhn, Håkon; Aspen, Harald; Larsen, Anne Kathrine. (2018) Edges of Global Transformation: Ethnographies of Uncertainty. Lexington Books. 2018. ISBN 978-1-4985-8407-4.
  • Fyhn, Håkon; Rønning, Barbro. (2016) Høyblokka Post-Mortem: Teater som ritual. Novus Forlag. 2016. ISBN 978-82-7099-864-7.
  • Fyhn, Håkon. (2009) Kreativ tverrfaglighet: Teori og praksis. Tapir Akademisk Forlag. 2009. ISBN 978-82-519-2433-7.

Part of book/report