Social Anthropology BSc (combined honours)

Explore key debates and issues in contemporary anthropology on our exciting social anthropology degree. 

Social anthropology explores the diversity and complexity of human societies in both Western and non-Western contexts. This combined honours degree will give you critical insights into how people live, and how society is structured, in different cultures. 

What is the relationship between conservation and conflict? How is heritage and national identity politicised and mobilised in society? How do humans understand and conceptualise relatedness? Why do big pharmaceutical companies promote the medicalisation of contemporary societies? These are just some of the big questions you’re likely to delve into on this degree. 

More generally, the course focuses on classic anthropological themes, such as kinship, witchcraft and indigenous cosmologies, along with contemporary disciplinary concerns, such as migration, tourism, gender and sexuality, health and medicine, and knowledge and science. Theoretical and methodological issues, and the discipline’s policy applications, are also explored in detail.   

Study with us and you’ll join a highly dynamic course, taught by staff engaged in world-class research. We run some of the UK’s most innovative modules such as Being Human, which explores the human condition from social and biological perspectives; Fieldwork: Theory, Practice and Product, where experienced anthropologists explain how a project reaches fruition; and Cultural Politics on Tour, where you will study tourists, and their motivations and influences, through an exciting mix of field trips, films, lectures and discussion.

Read about the latest developments on the Anthropology blog. Find out about the Northern Ireland field trip as part of the module Cultural Politics on Tour.