Homogenization in Nature and Culture: Local and National Diversity Lost by Globalization

The title of Thomas Hylland Eriksen's last book, published shortly before his death, was ‘Det umistelige’, which translated into English would be something like ‘The irreplaceable’ (Eriksen 2024). The topic of the book was about the process of homogenization in nature as well as in culture, the losses we face when the world loses its diversity and the global drivers of this cultural homogenization. I will say something about this soon, but I want first to share some personal words about Thomas. In the oral and written tributes and obituaries, the word indispensable was widely applied to Thomas himself, and it was indeed a major loss when he left us. It is said that every person is irreplaceable, but Thomas was surely one of a kind. I got to know Thomas almost 30 years ago when we each wrote a book on Darwin (Eriksen 1997): It drew attention (and considerable scepticism from the biologists' camp) that a social anthropologist could write a book about Darwin—but it turned out that he knew the subject better than most biologists. Before that, I was already following his writings on numerous topics with growing admiration. We decided to write a joint book titled Egoisme (‘egoism’) (Hessen and Hylland Eriksen 1999)—though it really should have been called Samarbeid (‘cooperation’). It was the result of an unusually radical interdisciplinary collaboration between social anthropology and biology in the quest for understanding the true nature of humanity—and we optimistically concluded that humans are, in fact, better than their reputation: We have evolved as social, cooperative beings where empathy and morality are natural traits, at least among kins. Few showed these good sides of human nature better than Thomas. He had a warmth and generosity that do not always go hand in hand with an analytical mind and supreme intellect, but with Thomas, one never overshadowed the other. And this duality was reflected in the gestalt psychology figure of the ‘duck–rabbit’, which he liked to use as a metaphor for the problem of seeing both sides of an issue. Depending on the angle, the figure shows both a duck and a rabbit, but we can only see one of them at a time. Thomas saw both, and I have often borrowed his quote that ‘there is more both-and than either-or in this world’. In my view, this is also a key trait of an intellectual in the best sense of the word: a person who is not dogmatic, but intellectually engaging, curious and inquisitive; who can see things from multiple perspectives; and who can change his mind when reasoned and knowledge-based arguments demand it. Thomas's deep insights—not just in social anthropology but also history, philosophy, literature, biology and other disciplines—made him the leading intellectual in the Norwegian academy. Additionally, his ability to discuss and disseminate his insights for broader audiences made him a deeply respected and well-known personality in general. Thomas was uniquely open to other cultures and, for decades, was also a leading voice in the defence of multiculturalism at the national level, in contrast to what he saw as more narrow-minded forms of nationalism centred on monoculturalism—a view famously proposed by Ernest Gellner (Conversi 2022). He was himself a world citizen, as reflected in his writings on ethnicity and nationalism, often arguing in favour of ‘a colourful community’ (Eriksen 1993, 1995). From his many field trips and studies to Mauritius, many books and writings emerged (with several editions) reflecting his interest and standing on these issues (Eriksen 2007a, 2020). Adding to this, he produced or delivered several papers, opinion pieces and speeches arguing for the great value of multiculturalism, and yet he was not oblivious to the challenges and dangers this implied: His positive attitude towards immigration came at a personal cost, and he was the target of harsh attacks—not only from right-wing nationalists. My contribution, based on a paper presented at the workshop on ‘The Future of Diversity’ co-organized in Rome by Thomas and Daniele Conversi (Hessen 2024), reflects on the issue of biotic and cultural homogenization. Thomas saw these as catalysed by globalization and market forces, to which Thomas, in line with his previous work published in Nations and Nationalism (Eriksen 2004, 2007b), added nationalism as a homogenizing force. These linkages were reflected in, and in syntony with, the views of other renowned academics joining the workshop, such as Duara (2021, 2025). Finally, I reflect on the apparent paradox that globalization and exchange of cultural markers and elements, which Thomas generally embraced in opposition to homogenizing nationalist proclivities, is one of the main drivers of cultural homogenization. As always, Thomas himself was aware of this paradox (again, the ‘duck–rabbit’), which he also discusses thoroughly in a book published shortly before he left us (Eriksen 2024). Thomas had wide interests and insights into natural sciences, reflected in several of his writings and books, notably climate change and biodiversity loss as driven by capitalism, consumerism and a globalized acceleration—nicely captured in his large research project and book Overheating (Eriksen 2016). In many ways, his more recent discussion on biocultural homogenization departs from Overheating, because it can be argued that the kick-off of the global homogenizing drive via trade and exchange of plants and animals, notably associated with agriculture, can be traced to the post-1492 beginning of the ‘Columbian exchange’ (Mann 2011). The discovery and exchange of not only domestic plants and animals but also cultural habits and diseases (mainly from the colonizing whites to the indigenous people) was the starting point of a global, accelerating homogenizing trend, sometimes referred to as Homogenocene (Conversi 2025; Conversi and Posocco 2024; Eriksen 2021). Perhaps the most obvious link between biotic and cultural homogenization is agriculture and food and the entire ‘food-chain’ from producer to consumer can be related to this. Throughout human history, the onset of agriculture has been accompanied by a coevolution where changes in agricultural practices and food production and consumption have shaped not only our gut microbiome but also our genome. Traits that enabled us to manipulate or modulate the environment to promote our survival and reproductive fitness have been variously labelled the ‘extended phenotype’ (Dawkins 1982), the ‘extended evolutionary synthesis’ (Laland et al. 2014), ‘niche construction’ (Laland et al. 2016) or an ‘extension of biology through culture’ (Whiten et al. 2017). Clearly, the influence between humans and the environment is reciprocal (Cronk 1991; Kaplan 2003; Sear et al. 2016), and hence, it makes sense to see biotic and cultural homogenization in parallel. Aside from agricultural practices, loss of habitats often implies irreversible loss of both biotic and cultural (indigenous) diversity. The destruction of Amazonia's rainforest, which risks hitting a tipping point, would mean an irreversible loss of both biodiversity and cultural diversity. Robust traditions related to hunting, fishing or gathering are still practiced among indigenous and non-indigenous people, where changes in species presence or abundance have strong cultural repercussions (Franklin 1999). Animals, as well as trees, are embedded in folklore, myths and identity. Europe and many African countries have lost their populations of lions, but what would African identity be without lions, elephants, giraffes and the other charismatic megafauna? Current overharvesting and replacement of wild fauna with domestic animals act as a strong driver towards parallel cultural and biotic homogenization. In fact, almost all biocultural losses are driven by recent changes in Western human culture, more specifically mass consumption and its spread from the West to ‘the rest’. This goes beyond the quantity and type of food consumption and includes all sorts of overconsumption of goods that, in the absence of a circular economy, come with a heavy toll on biodiversity, as explicitly stated in the first Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (Brondízio et al. 2019). Also, our lifestyle based on extensive travels and trade promotes species diffusion and biocultural homogenization. Because the drivers are similar for climate change and biodiversity loss, there is a double benefit in changing gear and direction towards human lifestyle and development, notably the Western model of linear growth and consumption culture. We should not, however, underscore that there are real dilemmas, that is, deep decarbonization of energy supply and ‘the green transition’ often imply demands for areas—and nature (Eriksen 2021; Hessen and Vandvik 2022). Most urbanized people have a detached relationship with nature (Richardson 2025) and very rudimentary insights into the diversity and species in their local environment (also low in the case of parks). This does not mean that they do not appreciate or value diversity, but loss or replacement of species may often be neglected. In contrast, indigenous peoples disconnected from or resisting the market system typically have intricate insights into local diversity, species' names and their functions. For example, it is claimed that the Yanomami in the Brazilian Amazon, even at a young age, can name 67 species of fish (Kopenawa and Albert 2023). Similarly, the indigenous people of Papua New Guinea have (or had) an astonishing insight into the local fauna (Flannery 2000). Along with such ecological and taxonomic wisdom, there is also often a spiritual dimension to species and landscapes. When these local communities and cultures ‘opened up’ (or were invaded), local habits and insights generally vanished, globally replaced by uniform goods and culture. While biotic homogenization is, by and large, negative for the reasons given above, cultural transmissions may not necessarily be negative. Both normative achievements and technical improvements can be transmitted, adopted and improve the quality of life of recipient populations. However, traditional knowledge, such as names, functioning and understanding of species, as well as the spiritual relations with the biota, is currently dwindling due to both biotic and cultural homogenization. Forests are shrinking, logged and burned, rivers are polluted due to mining and other attacks, while modern life and commercial food and habits make traditional knowledge simultaneously irrelevant ad more relevant. Without going deeper into the cultural and social dimension here, a point worth making is that a lack of knowledge of the biota makes it easier for biodiversity loss and homogenization to continue unrecognized as long as the river contains fish. To the extent that we think that loss of cultural and biotic diversity, as well as loss of local knowledge, represent a global loss for humanity, homogenization and a degraded and more uniform world should concern us. One could argue that human greed, or the type of globalized capitalism that puts short-term profit over long-term sustainability, has brought us into the Anthropocene. Since his early days, Thomas was an outspoken environmentalist with deep concerns for climate change and the loss of biodiversity, as well as a strong critic of consumerism and global capitalism. He wrote about this in several papers, particularly in his Overheating project and book, and in our jointly edited ‘Anthropocene’ (Eriksen et al. 2024), where he argues that perhaps capitalocene (Moore 2017) would be a more appropriate notion, because it is the system, more than humans per se, that is to blame. Ahead of this book, Thomas and I wrote a newspaper chronicle on the need for more long-term thinking, where the main message was as follows: There is no lack of knowledge that the world is heading towards a wilder climate and ecological depletion. For over 30 years, scientists have pointed out something that has become increasingly obvious: Homo sapiens has overstepped its bounds and succeeded too well for its own good—not to mention at the expense of other species. Since 1970, human action has removed 15% of the Amazon, 35% of the world's wetlands and nearly 70% of global wildlife populations. Global trade has quadrupled since 1980, tourism has increased sixfold, the number of sold airline tickets more than doubled from 2004 to 2019 and CO2 continues to rise in the atmosphere. Every year, Earth Overshoot Day is the date by when we have used up all our resources budget. Everything beyond that point is borrowed from our descendants—who, for obvious reasons, were never asked if they wanted to be creditors. These are supposedly the very same descendants in whose name nationalists launch their appeals under the banner of national continuity. For the past couple of years, the date for Earth Overshoot Day arrived by late July. In many wealthy nations, such as Norway, it comes in early spring. All of this is well known. Thus, it becomes necessary to ask why it is so hard to slow down the global overheating of the economy, climate and consumption. Several explanations have been proposed, from path dependency (continuing on familiar tracks) to capitalism's inbuilt demand for growth. A key overarching issue is how we weigh our present needs against the needs of the unborn—or even our children. This has biological, psychological and cultural consequences. It explains why we could act decisively during the pandemic, but we struggle against climate inaction in its multiple forms (climate obstruction, delay, denial, apathy, etc.). Our ability to think in the long term shrinks in a fast-paced society obsessed with speed, efficiency and innovation and is related to the local versus the global. Many of the environmental problems we face are of the ‘The tragedy of the commons’ type (Hardin 1968), where the numerous small impacts accumulate as overuse and high emissions. Against the extreme neoliberal ‘lifeboat ethics’ that Hardin proposed as a solution, Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom argued instead that these can be overcome in local communities (Ostrom 1990, 2010) or even at the national level (Wilson and Hessen 2018) while tackling the challenges at a global scale. Although Thomas himself displayed an impressive diversity of his interests, the essential question was the local and the national versus the global, whether in the context of culture, nature or homogenization. From the ‘duck–rabbit’ perspective, flow and exchange between cultures and nations represent a good cross-fertilization but at the risk that a few dominant traits replace a rich diversity with a value of its own. If we all eat the same food or buy the same goods (to the extent that it is affordable), this may perhaps foster a feeling of interconnectedness and displays the immense difference in wealth and goods across the globe. The main problem with globalization, as Thomas saw it, and it is easy to agree on this, is the perverted role that global capitalism plays by forcing upon us a globalized consumerism based on the same products and an increasingly skewed distribution of wealth—and a lifestyle that comes with tremendous costs for the future. Some may recall the classic graffiti: ‘The future has been cancelled due to lack of interest’. Perhaps it contains a grain of truth. Most of us live within short time horizons, where next month's loan payment is a more pressing issue than a devastated planet in our great-grandchildren's old age. Can we change this? Can we act in the present based on events likely to occur in 100, 1000 or 10,000 years? Criticism of our tendency to squander the family silver and leave behind a garbage heap where we inherited a Garden of Eden centres on these unborn people. Can we grant rights to people who do not yet exist? In theory, yes. In practice, it is difficult. Elections must be won, bills must be paid, vacations planned. Still, it is entirely possible to apply the Golden Rule of ethics—‘Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you’—to all people, including the unborn. We are likely the only species capable of dreaming of the past and planning for the future. Revolutionary movements, religious end-times thinking and sober infrastructure planning all testify to this. Most studies, however, show that our mental projection of the future rarely stretches beyond 30 years—usually the span of our own lives, or at most, that of our grandchildren. Even long-term macrolevel planning, such as IPCC projections and UN advisories, rarely extends more than a few generations into the future. There is much to be said for humans. We are equipped with empathy and a strong ability to manage material scarcity and immediate threats. But evolution provides no manual for solving global problems of our own making. That does not mean it is impossible to make a decision. In The Good Ancestor, Australian of can we are not with or but with and 2020). For the struggle is one of against He among other thinking as a to capitalism. It could several generations to a from to he also as an of long-term thinking with a on how the was is, to a great about time. 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