The "Stateless Sovereignties" speaker series seeks to explore the concept and practice of sovereignty outside of its traditional euro- and state centric heritage and definitions, by inviting internationally renown scholars to unpack, pluralize and disassemble the concept with perspectives coming from the margins of the global order. By moving sovereignty beyond its conventional connection to statehood, the series aims to adapt the concept to a new set of circumstances, so that it may better account for the many radical experiments with governance across the world, and the rapid changes impacting peoples' ways of relating to each other.

Theo Rakopoulos is associate professor at the Department for Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo. His work explores themes in economic and political anthropology, including community boundaries, their transgression, and the grey zones they create. 

Rakopolous has published widely on a variety of topics, including the confiscation of mafia land in Italy, conspiracy theories in Greece, and the anthropology of wealth. His most recent project concerns citizenship, land and property in Cyprus, where he explores how citizenship is navigated, sold, and reimagined in a contentious and fractured context.