Anthropology is the comparative study of human societies in all their diversity. It seeks to understand cultural life in a wide range of social activities. Anthropologists carry out their research through long-term, in-depth fieldwork in their places of regional expertise.

The MRes introduces you to current directions of research in social anthropology and fosters critical reflection on the problems and possibilities entailed in anthropological research. It aims to guide students in how to access and use key sources of research material (e.g. archival, visual, and museological) and to provide training in ethnographic fieldwork research methods (e.g. participant observation, interviewing, recording).

Students completing the programme should be adequately prepared either to undertake further research towards the PhD in Social Anthropology, or to enter employment as trained researchers in the public or private sectors. We offer supervision in most areas of the discipline and we have particular strengths in our four principal research themes: Anthropology of the North, Environment and Perception, Creativity and Knowledge, and Religion, Belief and Practice.