In the 1970s Gregory Bateson identified several roots of the ecological crisis. Maybe the most important, and at least the most “Batesonian” was a list of “wrong ideas” about the relation between humans and their environment. One goes like this: “We can have unilateral control over the environment and must strive for that control.” Bateson’s alternative to this idea was to recognize how humans and the environment are mutually constituted, how our reality on a multitude of levels is relational, synergistic and co-constitutive. The symposium will present three of the world’s leading scientists that have pursued the groundbreaking ideas of the anthropologist and polymath Gregory Bateson (1904-1980). Invited commentators will contribute to the conversation by exploring the political implications of their ideas: Henrik Sinding-Larsen (University of Oslo), Laurence Habib (Oslo and Akershus University College, HiOA) and Karen O’Brien (University of Oslo). The conversations will be led by: Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Nora Bateson and Fred Steier. Conference Organizers: