ABSTRACT
A massive amount of high-quality, strictly academic research is continuously being produced in anthropology, and this is not merely wonderful, but it is absolutely necessary. Yet much of this work fails to achieve the relevance it deserves, since it hardly enters into a wider ecology of ideas. Apart from providing accurate knowledge about other places and societies, it gives an appreciation of other experiences and the equal value of all human life, and not least, it helps us to understand ourselves. In the contemporary, intertwined world, anthropology should be a central part of anybody’s Bildung, that is education in the widest sense. Seen from the perspective of the interested and enlightened layperson, scientific research can be likened to a space mission. One sends a probe into space, ceremoniously waving it off in the anticipation that it will return with new knowledge about the universe.
