Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo, passed away on 27 November. The ReROOT team mourns a prolific anthropologist and an extraordinarily generous intellectual who has inspired many of us. Thomas was a member of our International Advisory Board since the beginning. His direct interaction with ReROOT may have been limited (he attended the online launching event in May 2021 but was unable to attend subsequent general assemblies), but his presence can be felt elsewhere. First of all in the personal contacts he had with several of the ReROOT partners but also through his many talks and published work. To name just one: about ten years ago Thomas delivered the Annual Inaugural lecture at the Anthropology Department at KU Leuven, under the title Other people's life-worlds: anthropology as a humanistic endeavour. This lecture ended with “In this incessantly flattening, neoliberal, globalising era where difference is generally seen, through a hegemonic lens, as shortcomings, perhaps the most important political mission of anthropology consists simply in showing that there are many different kinds of good and valuable lives.” Based on that, Thomas can be seen saying what ReROOT could recognize as its own mission: “a humanistic quest, or an everyday cosmopolitanism where different life-worlds are able to meet”.