Sustainability is ubiquitous in contemporary life. The UN Sustainable Development Goals instill concern for environmental, economic, and social sustainability among business leaders, bureaucrats, and politicians, while the public at large worry about sustainable consumption amidst the diminishing resources of a ravaged planet. These multiple meanings testify to the complexity and malleability of sustainability as a concept, as well as its imaginary potency and its ability to enter a variety of world-making projects.

The Anthropologies of Sustainability research group explores how different actors conceptualize and render active sustainability for different purposes in different contexts. Based on research in Australia, Circumpolar Arctic, Norway, Russia, Tanzania, and the US, we investigate forest fire management, ecological vulnerability, urban governance, energy and digital security, infrastructure, real estate, and science and technological developments, as well as financial and sovereign wealth management with the aim of understanding the discourses and practices of “sustainability” - including what they imagine, enact, and actually sustain. 

We collaborate with multi-disciplinary researchers throughout the world, and seek constructive and critical engagements with industry, arts, and science worlds, as well as policy communities, and welcome students at all levels who are interested in exploring these issues with us.

We collaborate with researchers at Binghamton University, PRIO, Rice University, UC Berkeley, and University of Oslo, and have affiliations with the London School of Economics and University of Oxford.

The current research group extends from long-standing research on organizational anthropology at NTNU. 

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Publications