Between politics and academia: a thesis on tobacco producers

Abstract

I will try to present an image of your early years at the University of Oslo, mainly regarding your Master's thesis in Social Anthropology, which you presented in 1978. I don't remember exactly when it was that I first met you, but it must have been several years before, probably in the early 1970s. At that time they had just taken me as University Lecturer in the Department, and you had just returned after several years abroad and had begun your studies in Social Anthropology. I don't remember when you were in the race when we met, and if you had already started your postgraduate studies. This left me completely, probably because it was in the 70s, a timely time for deep political commitment and for criticism of the traditional program and courses of the Department. It was a time when studies and politics and general sociability were closely linked, and we, who at that time belonged to the extreme left, spent time in continuous discussions about absolutely everything, and the issue of who received when and with what exams were issues totally subordinate to all those things that involved us.