Pioneering journalist Joris Luyendijk is joining The Guardian to write a blog about London's financial district.

"I'm going to discover the City like an anthropologist going off to do field work amongst a tribe," he says.

He plans to interview the people who work there, examine their behaviourial patterns and challenge the conceptions they have of themselves.

His anthropological observations and musings will take readers on a journey of discovery in the square mile.

Luyendijk is credited with forging a new approach to journalism in 2009 with his column about electric cars for the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsbald, as he explained to Stephen Moss last year.

In that interview, he also spoke of his desire to develop a new way of doing journalism (video here). He had explored the same issues in his challenging book, Hello Everybody! One Journalist's Search for Truth in the Middle East.

Luyendijk, who launches his blog on 1 June, says: "The Guardian is experimenting with the ways it delivers online content and I am looking forward to working with them to create this new blog about London's financial heartland... I hope to demystify it and trigger a conversation with readers about how the City operates."

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger said of the appointment: "Joris is a pioneer in the way he has used digital media to write an entirely different kind of column.

"He will approach the City as he did the Middle East or the future of the electric car, as an anthropologist. His column will build over time and harness the expertise and knowledge of others. I'm sure it will be much talked-about and read."

Luyendijk, 39, was born in Amsterdam. From 1998 until 2003 he worked as Middle East correspondent in Cairo, Beirut and finally East Jerusalem. His book, first published in Holland in 2006, was recently awarded the prix assises du journalisme 2010, the first time the award has gone to a non-French journalist.

Source: Guardian News & Media PR