Peter Bille Larsen
Biographic Data
| ID | 78083 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Peter Bille Larsen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Peter Bille |
| FAMILY NAME | Larsen |
| SIGNATURE | LARSEN P B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Geneva |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8908-1788 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 30 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
The future of the right to education in an evolving world
Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the global expansion of access to education has been remarkable. In 1950, only around 47 per cent of the world's 540 million children aged 5–14 were enrolled in school. Today, it is estimated that about 90 per cent of primary school-aged children and 86 per cent of lower secondary school-aged children are enrolled in education. Yet progress remains deeply uneven. Some 272 million ch…
Mining, Criminalization and Developmentalized Sustainability Violence in the Peruvian Highlands: The Case of Conga
The article explores the use of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) discourse in transforming longstanding socio-environmental development and commons conflicts in the mining landscape of the Peruvian Andes shaped by historical patterns of dispossession and violence. Building on the case of Conga, a megaproject in the region of Cajamarca, the article links histories of violence and resistance by the rondas campesinas with the proliferation o…
Localized in Form, Centralized in Practice: SDG Localization, Ambiguous Politics and the Marginalization of Pastoral Commons in Arunachal Pradesh, India
The localization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is widely promoted as a strategy to align global development objectives with local priorities through decentralization and participatory governance. However, empirical evidence on how localization reshapes governance relations in regions with strong commons-based institutions remains limited. This paper examines the implementation of SDG localization in Arunachal Pradesh, India, focusin…
European University Legacies: Problematic Heritage and Contemporary Practice
Reaffirming the Role of Anthropology in Transformative Change: Responses, Resonance, and Seizing Opportunities
This brief response to reviews of the Ascona Charter asks how it resonates with and connects diverse realities, concerns, and experiences of transformation. The Charter responds to a collective call from students and engaged scholars for adopting collective action that prioritizes transformation and positive change in the world, rather than remaining caught in neoliberal metrics and individualized trajectories. By operationalizing the Charter’s v…
ACTRACT. The Ascona Transformation Charter: Towards a Vision and Charter for a Transformative Anthropology
In this 21st century, the enormous scale and extent of social inequalities and ecological devastation prompt us to revisit the relevance and positionality of anthropology as a discipline and a societal project. how then to address systemic change and transformation both within and outside the discipline of anthropology? We, as a collective of anthropologists from Switzerland and Europe, including members of the Swiss Anthropological Association (…
Revisiting Agency and Marginality in Northern Vietnam
In Vietnam, ethnic minorities and local communities are typically portrayed as passive subjects of top-down heritage policies. By ethnographically examining the practice of xòe, a Thái dance recognized as intangible cultural heritage, we seek to challenge commonly held narratives of top-down imposition unveiling the many layers of agency and localized meaning creation involved. The article shows how processes of state-driven governmentalization a…
Contested Heritage Practices and Community Engagement Dilemmas in Vietnam
This article explores the contested intangible cultural heritage practices and significance of policymaking in Vietnam in relation to the notion of community and its engagement in heritage safeguarding, management, and development. By analyzing four cases of heritage contestation, it challenges the view that heritage conflicts are absent from Vietnam’s top-down framework. Findings reveal vibrant debates and highlight the shortcomings of current h…
Towards a critical anthropology of the (de)creative turn in heritage
Heritage processes are today increasingly entangled with multiple forms and discourses of creativity. Connections between creativity and heritage form part of a new consensual authorised discourse, where creativity and (heritage) entrepreneurship are projected as mutually beneficial in a win-win scenario, while co-existing with ever-more visible practices of destruction and loss. Challenging the celebratory narrative, the article unpacks the less…
Heritage is about today, it's not about what happened in the past: A conversation with Webber Ndoro, Director General of the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of C…
Webber Ndoro was the director general of International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), an international organization based in Rome, from 2017 to 2023. Before joining ICCROM in January 2018, Webber Ndoro was the director of the African World Heritage Fund, based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is also associate professor at the University of Cape Town. He worked at the University of Zimbabw…
Decolonializing a museum of ethnography? A conversation with Carine Ayélé Durand, director of the Museum of Ethnography in Geneva
Peter Bille Larsen (PL
It comes down to dealing with people: A conversation with Brennen Ferguson, Haudenosaunee Confederacy
Brennen Ferguson is a citizen of the Tuscarora Nation-one of the six nations comprising the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.He sits on the Council of Chiefs and Clan Mothers in Tuscarora on behalf of the Turtle Clan family.He is also a member of the Haudenosaunee External Relations Committee (HERC).The HERC is mandated by the Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee.Part of the
Introduction - The heritage and decoloniality nexus: Global exchanges and unresolved questions in sedimented landscapes of injustice
More than ever, heritage narratives, policies, and objects are being questioned because of the colonial legacies that still permeate public spaces (e.g., Knudsen et al., 2022). From the eruption of protests and claims to heritage objects, places, and monuments in former colonial powers, to the emergence of Indigenous peoples' heritage curatorship of land, and resources activism, new efforts are challenging racialized social orders and persistent …
Introduction: The Complex Relationship Between Human Rights and World Heritage
Repositioning Engaged Anthropology: Critical Reflexivity and Overcoming Dichotomies
This special issue aims to shed light on and recognize the full potential of engaged anthropology and its place in academia and beyond. It argues for an inclusive approach to be both theoretically enriching and methodologically grounded in diverse practices and forms. The introduction addresses common confusions and obstacles distracting engaged anthropology from its core premises and potentials. As the Interface Commission of the Swiss Anthropol…
Anthropological Engagement in the International Sphere: A Conversation Grounded in Swiss Experiences
As anthropologists increasingly embark upon the study of the international sphere, this often builds on different forms of engagement within and around organizations, processes, and institutional corridors. The co-authors, building upon a round table exchange, address the advantages and dilemmas of anthropological engagement in the field of international governance, including humanitarian work, diplomacy, international organizations, the Swiss fe…
The Lightness of Human Rights in World Heritage: A Critical View of Rights-Based Approaches, Vernaculars, and Action Opportunities
Why are the global rights commitments made by States Parties to the World Heritage Convention failing to trigger effective responses to critical human rights infringements? This paper responds to a continuous call from heritage practitioners to help clarify the meaning and significance of human rights-based approaches (RBA) that are adopted as policy imperatives, yet simultaneously undermined in practice. The first part of the paper reviews the v…
Sanctioning Disciplined Grabs (SDGs): From SDGs as Green Anti-Politics Machine to Radical Alternatives
From development displacement and salvage archaeology in Nubia to inclusive sustainable heritage and development crafting in Old Dongola
As heritage increasingly engages with sustainable development principles and approaches, what does this mean for countries like Sudan, that are facing massive socio-economic challenges, whilst undergoing intense development and socio-political transitions? This article is about these effects, but also the connections and changing relationships between archaeology, heritage and development narratives in Sudan. In addition, a brief historical detou…
Indigenous rights and ILO Convention 169: Learning from the past and challenging the future
This special issue of the journal is about one of the most significant, yet largely overlooked, international rights instruments concerning indigenous peoples: the ILO Convention 169 on the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples. It offers a highly needed critical perspective bringing together practitioners, institutional actors, indigenous leaders and academics in an attempt to take stock of nearly 30 years of its existence
Enabling human rights-based development for indigenous and tribal peoples? Summarising the 25th anniversary global policy debate on ILO Convention 169
Contextualising ratification and implementation: A critical appraisal of ILO Convention 169 from a social justice perspective
The overall concern with ILO Convention 169 is often listed as the dual challenge of promoting its ratification and enhancing effective implementation. This article offers a critical appraisal of the dual challenge by unpacking calls for clarity, guidance and implementation, while exploring the underlying politics of negotiation, interpretation and institutional boundaries potentially undermining the role of the Convention as an instrument of soc…
The Anthropology of Conservation NGOs: Rethinking the Boundaries
The Neoliberal Heritage Affect: Worldly Heritage and Haturalized Nature in Central Vietnam
This article explores the transformation of heritage values from discourse to experience in a new affective economy. The case of Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park in Vietnam serves to demonstrate the intertwined role of affective experience and neoliberal heritage entrepreneurialism. Both are intimately connected through processes of heritage commodification and consumption prompting attention to heritage not only in affective terms alone, but how …
“The dog in the manger”
This chapter argues that neoliberal slogans are powerful, if ambiguous, vehicles of simplicity, polarization, and morality. Based on Peruvian material, notably the tensions and confrontations before, during, and after the so-called Baguazo, this chapter suggests that neoliberal slogans have been instrumental in generating, rather than merely accompanying, the contradictions that have shaped and continue to affect social and environmental conflict…
The Lightness of Human Rights in World Heritage: A Critical View of Rights-Based Approaches, Vernaculars, and Action Opportunities
Why are the global rights commitments made by States Parties to the World Heritage Convention failing to trigger effective responses to critical human rights infringements? This paper responds to a continuous call from heritage practitioners to help clarify the meaning and significance of human rights-based approaches (RBA) that are adopted as policy imperatives, yet simultaneously undermined in practice. The first part of the paper reviews the v…
Oil territorialities, social life, and legitimacy in the Peruvian Amazon
Extractive industry activities are today an integral part of social life and economic relations across multiple sites. Yet, how and under which conditions do extractive industries insert themselves within and potentially transform territorial dynamics, social relations, and local governance arrangements? The debate is often polarized between competing narratives of social critique depicting corporate power, conflict, and imposition and insider pe…
Indigenous rights and ILO Convention 169: Learning from the past and challenging the future
This special issue of the journal is about one of the most significant, yet largely overlooked, international rights instruments concerning indigenous peoples: the ILO Convention 169 on the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples. It offers a highly needed critical perspective bringing together practitioners, institutional actors, indigenous leaders and academics in an attempt to take stock of nearly 30 years of its existence
Approaching Human Rights at the World Heritage Committee: Capturing Situated Conversations, Complexity, and Dynamism in Global Heritage Processes
Social scientists are increasingly approaching the World Heritage Committee itself as an entry-point to understanding global heritage processes and phenomena. This article explores the subject of human rights in the operations of the World Heritage Committee-the decision-making body established by the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention. It seeks to address the epistemological and methodological implications of approaching the World Heritage Co…
Sanctioning Disciplined Grabs (SDGs): From SDGs as Green Anti-Politics Machine to Radical Alternatives
Introduction - The heritage and decoloniality nexus: Global exchanges and unresolved questions in sedimented landscapes of injustice
More than ever, heritage narratives, policies, and objects are being questioned because of the colonial legacies that still permeate public spaces (e.g., Knudsen et al., 2022). From the eruption of protests and claims to heritage objects, places, and monuments in former colonial powers, to the emergence of Indigenous peoples' heritage curatorship of land, and resources activism, new efforts are challenging racialized social orders and persistent …
Heritage is about today, it's not about what happened in the past: A conversation with Webber Ndoro, Director General of the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of C…
Webber Ndoro was the director general of International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), an international organization based in Rome, from 2017 to 2023. Before joining ICCROM in January 2018, Webber Ndoro was the director of the African World Heritage Fund, based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is also associate professor at the University of Cape Town. He worked at the University of Zimbabw…
Introduction: The Complex Relationship Between Human Rights and World Heritage
Contextualising ratification and implementation: A critical appraisal of ILO Convention 169 from a social justice perspective
The overall concern with ILO Convention 169 is often listed as the dual challenge of promoting its ratification and enhancing effective implementation. This article offers a critical appraisal of the dual challenge by unpacking calls for clarity, guidance and implementation, while exploring the underlying politics of negotiation, interpretation and institutional boundaries potentially undermining the role of the Convention as an instrument of soc…
World heritage, wilderness and large landscapes and seascapes
This thematic study focuses on the contribution the World Heritage Convention can make to wilderness conservation around the world. It provides pragmatic guidance to the Convention and its many partners for strengthening protection of wilderness by promoting the profound linkages between culture and wild nature
Human rights: An anthropological reader. edited by Goodale, Mark
Ways of walking: Ethnography and practice on foot edited by Ingold, Tim and Jo Lee Vergunst
Human rights: An anthropological reader. edited by Goodale, Mark
Post-frontier Resource Governance
The author presents an anthropological analysis of the regulatory technologies that characterize contemporary resource frontiers. He offers an ethnographic portrayal of indigenous rights, resource ext
The Peruvian Amazon and Post-frontier Ethnography
I was drawn to Latin America and the Amazon not only because of the presence of centuries of deepening frontier pressures, but equally so by the proliferation of indigenous rights and environmental measures in recent decades. The Peruvian Amazon covers more than 78 million ha or some 61% of Peru’s total surface, with a total population of around 3.6 million. Of these, some 332,975 live in 1,786 native communities — the term used to simultaneously…
The Anthropology of Conservation NGOs: Rethinking the Boundaries
World heritage, wilderness and large landscapes and seascapes
This thematic study focuses on the contribution the World Heritage Convention can make to wilderness conservation around the world. It provides pragmatic guidance to the Convention and its many partners for strengthening protection of wilderness by promoting the profound linkages between culture and wild nature
World heritage on the ground: Ethnographic Perspectives
"World heritage on the ground: ethnographic perspectives." International Journal of Heritage Studies, 23(10), pp. 1017–1018
Oil territorialities, social life, and legitimacy in the Peruvian Amazon
Extractive industry activities are today an integral part of social life and economic relations across multiple sites. Yet, how and under which conditions do extractive industries insert themselves within and potentially transform territorial dynamics, social relations, and local governance arrangements? The debate is often polarized between competing narratives of social critique depicting corporate power, conflict, and imposition and insider pe…
The Anthropology of Conservation NGOs: Rethinking the Boundaries
The Neoliberal Heritage Affect: Worldly Heritage and Haturalized Nature in Central Vietnam
This article explores the transformation of heritage values from discourse to experience in a new affective economy. The case of Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park in Vietnam serves to demonstrate the intertwined role of affective experience and neoliberal heritage entrepreneurialism. Both are intimately connected through processes of heritage commodification and consumption prompting attention to heritage not only in affective terms alone, but how …
“The dog in the manger”
This chapter argues that neoliberal slogans are powerful, if ambiguous, vehicles of simplicity, polarization, and morality. Based on Peruvian material, notably the tensions and confrontations before, during, and after the so-called Baguazo, this chapter suggests that neoliberal slogans have been instrumental in generating, rather than merely accompanying, the contradictions that have shaped and continue to affect social and environmental conflict…
Approaching Human Rights at the World Heritage Committee: Capturing Situated Conversations, Complexity, and Dynamism in Global Heritage Processes
Social scientists are increasingly approaching the World Heritage Committee itself as an entry-point to understanding global heritage processes and phenomena. This article explores the subject of human rights in the operations of the World Heritage Committee-the decision-making body established by the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention. It seeks to address the epistemological and methodological implications of approaching the World Heritage Co…
Enabling human rights-based development for indigenous and tribal peoples? Summarising the 25th anniversary global policy debate on ILO Convention 169
Contextualising ratification and implementation: A critical appraisal of ILO Convention 169 from a social justice perspective
The overall concern with ILO Convention 169 is often listed as the dual challenge of promoting its ratification and enhancing effective implementation. This article offers a critical appraisal of the dual challenge by unpacking calls for clarity, guidance and implementation, while exploring the underlying politics of negotiation, interpretation and institutional boundaries potentially undermining the role of the Convention as an instrument of soc…
Indigenous rights and ILO Convention 169: Learning from the past and challenging the future
This special issue of the journal is about one of the most significant, yet largely overlooked, international rights instruments concerning indigenous peoples: the ILO Convention 169 on the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples. It offers a highly needed critical perspective bringing together practitioners, institutional actors, indigenous leaders and academics in an attempt to take stock of nearly 30 years of its existence
From development displacement and salvage archaeology in Nubia to inclusive sustainable heritage and development crafting in Old Dongola
As heritage increasingly engages with sustainable development principles and approaches, what does this mean for countries like Sudan, that are facing massive socio-economic challenges, whilst undergoing intense development and socio-political transitions? This article is about these effects, but also the connections and changing relationships between archaeology, heritage and development narratives in Sudan. In addition, a brief historical detou…
Repositioning Engaged Anthropology: Critical Reflexivity and Overcoming Dichotomies
This special issue aims to shed light on and recognize the full potential of engaged anthropology and its place in academia and beyond. It argues for an inclusive approach to be both theoretically enriching and methodologically grounded in diverse practices and forms. The introduction addresses common confusions and obstacles distracting engaged anthropology from its core premises and potentials. As the Interface Commission of the Swiss Anthropol…
Anthropological Engagement in the International Sphere: A Conversation Grounded in Swiss Experiences
As anthropologists increasingly embark upon the study of the international sphere, this often builds on different forms of engagement within and around organizations, processes, and institutional corridors. The co-authors, building upon a round table exchange, address the advantages and dilemmas of anthropological engagement in the field of international governance, including humanitarian work, diplomacy, international organizations, the Swiss fe…
The Lightness of Human Rights in World Heritage: A Critical View of Rights-Based Approaches, Vernaculars, and Action Opportunities
Why are the global rights commitments made by States Parties to the World Heritage Convention failing to trigger effective responses to critical human rights infringements? This paper responds to a continuous call from heritage practitioners to help clarify the meaning and significance of human rights-based approaches (RBA) that are adopted as policy imperatives, yet simultaneously undermined in practice. The first part of the paper reviews the v…
Sanctioning Disciplined Grabs (SDGs): From SDGs as Green Anti-Politics Machine to Radical Alternatives
Introduction: The Complex Relationship Between Human Rights and World Heritage
Towards a critical anthropology of the (de)creative turn in heritage
Heritage processes are today increasingly entangled with multiple forms and discourses of creativity. Connections between creativity and heritage form part of a new consensual authorised discourse, where creativity and (heritage) entrepreneurship are projected as mutually beneficial in a win-win scenario, while co-existing with ever-more visible practices of destruction and loss. Challenging the celebratory narrative, the article unpacks the less…
Heritage is about today, it's not about what happened in the past: A conversation with Webber Ndoro, Director General of the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of C…
Webber Ndoro was the director general of International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), an international organization based in Rome, from 2017 to 2023. Before joining ICCROM in January 2018, Webber Ndoro was the director of the African World Heritage Fund, based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is also associate professor at the University of Cape Town. He worked at the University of Zimbabw…
Decolonializing a museum of ethnography? A conversation with Carine Ayélé Durand, director of the Museum of Ethnography in Geneva
Peter Bille Larsen (PL
It comes down to dealing with people: A conversation with Brennen Ferguson, Haudenosaunee Confederacy
Brennen Ferguson is a citizen of the Tuscarora Nation-one of the six nations comprising the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.He sits on the Council of Chiefs and Clan Mothers in Tuscarora on behalf of the Turtle Clan family.He is also a member of the Haudenosaunee External Relations Committee (HERC).The HERC is mandated by the Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee.Part of the
Sociology (19 works) · Political science (16 works) · Law (12 works) · Environmental ethics (10 works) · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation (9 works) · History (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Human rights (8 works) · Anthropology (7 works) · History (7 works)