Social Anthropology University of Cambridge

Overview

The Social Anthropology programme from the University of Cambridge students are supervised on an individual basis in order to provide a programme of teaching tailored to individual needs, the assignment of supervisors is spread as evenly as possible among the staff attached to the Department.

Principal fields of anthropological analysis are covered in two core seminar courses in 'The Scope of Social Anthropology'. Attendance at these is compulsory for all students. These two courses cover, respectively, 'Production and Reproduction', which includes the fields of economic anthropology and kinship; and 'Systems of Power and Knowledge', which includes political anthropology and the anthropology of religion.

Students also take a non-assessed course in theory and methods and one course in a specialist option subject. Different optional papers are on offer each year. Examples of optional papers include : Ethnography; Gender, Kinship and Care; Engaged Anthropology. In addition, for those wishing to specialise in a particular professional field, the Department may also offer options in Social Anthropology and Museums and Medical Anthropology.

The general course offers training in the following transferable skills:

• ability to engage with and undertake critical analysis of complex issues;

• ability to engage constructively in discussion in groups in which many different views are held, often passionately;

• ability to present an argument in clear and convincing terms both orally and in writing; and

• ability to design and undertake hands-on research. This includes training in:

  • archival review of literature;

  • ethnographic research methods;

  • analysis of results; and

  • skills in research proposal preparation and presentation.