Social Anthropology

Department statement

Social Anthropology has a diverse set of expertise, from migration to material cultures. Through ethnographic and creative research methods, social anthropologists at Manchester shed light on some of the most pressing challenges of our time. Overall, our strengths lie in visual anthropology, the study of global social and health inequalities, and urban and environmental challenges. Students will be learning from experts doing cutting-edge work.

We are renown for our teaching and research in visual anthropology. Visual anthropologists use film, photography, and other visual media as a research tool and a way of sharing their research findings. Ethnographic films refer to films made by anthropologists based on long-term fieldwork. Undergraduate students who have an interest in film and visual media, will have opportunities to practice digital filmmaking and learn about the history of ethnographic film and documentary. Students will also have access to one of the largest ethnographic film libraries in Europe. Undergraduate students who want to further develop practical visual media skills, can join the master’s in Visual Anthropology (MAVA). Postgraduate students will get a chance to work with sound, video and film equipment in our editing suites and have the unique opportunity to make their own films. View the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology for more information.

Social anthropology has expertise in global social and health inequalities. From the study of race and genomics in Latin America to the experiences of migration and immobility in the Mediterranean, anthropologists at Manchester are engaged in analysing and addressing inequalities. Undergraduate students begin by studying a module called Power and Culture: Inequality in Everyday Life, a theme carried through the rest of your degree programme, whether learning about kinship or about museum displays.

Our students also tend to be the kind of people who are invested in tackling inequalities. This is evident in the final year dissertation topics, which are diverse and engage with a range of pressing topics including the refugee crisis, LGBTQ+ issues, food poverty, ethical consumption, and other pressing societal challenges.

Although many of the anthropologists at Manchester study societies in different countries, from Brazil to Siberia, our strength also lies in the Anthropology of Britain, particularly on questions of class and race.  One example is Dr Katherine Smith’s research in North Manchester. In this video, ‘Challenging Stereotypes’ (https://vimeo.com/182988870), she takes us to the neighbourhoods where she did her ethnographic research and introduces us to the people she came to know well.

Urban and environmental challenges are also a sustained site of critical enquiry. The effects of climate change, risky urban infrastructures, and other environmental problems demand new ways of thinking and living in the world. Anthropologists in our department work on shamans, scientists, and climate change at the ethnic borderlands of China and Russia (see Cosmological Visionaries); the decommissioning of a nuclear site in Britain (see Sellafield Site Futures); and the hopes and failures of high-rise tower blocks in London and Nairobi (see Tower Block Failures).

These projects shed light on the power of ethnographic and anthropological research. They show, for example, the importance of bringing together knowledge and belief systems from diverse traditions, and the power of ethnography in spotlighting on-the-ground perspectives.

You can learn more about the various research projects here.

Students in the Anthropology of Development and Humanitarianism module have created a website over the past years, in dialogue with aid workers from the British Red Cross, Save the Children, organisations assisting refugees and asylum seekers, and more. They prepare for a visit from aid practitioners throughout the semester, working together in small groups to research what anthropological perspectives could offer to a particular humanitarian issue. They learn the valuable employability skills of teamwork and communication, in addition to how to apply scholarly analyses to ‘real world’ challenges.

Students who take the Anthropology of Vision, Memory, and the Senses learn to engage with the city of Manchester through multimedia and visual modes of exploration and expression:

• Online materials are filmed in Manchester this gives students a sense of the city in which they are studying as a dynamic social, cultural and political space that can be used to illustrate concepts from ancient cave painting to phenomenology to postmodernism.
• Conduct city-based lectures and activities: this includes mobile mp3 lectures with maps, locative audio/visuals, and psychogeography.
• Students do a multimedia assessment consisting of a photo-essay, radio show, and written essay. 

In the Anthropology of Religion and The Good Life: An Anthropology of Ethics, in addition to end of semester essays, students produce assessed oral presentations (5-8 minutes) in the middle of the semester based on critical engagement with the first of two core ethnographic monographs, learning to articulate complex ideas in communicable ways. Key features of the courses include:

• Teaching follows a hybrid model, where podcasts of all lectures are released at the beginning of the course. Lectures elucidate key approaches, concepts, and debates. Students are required to listen to the relevant podcast in advance of the one hour lecture. This renders the lectures more interactive and useful as students have had the time to assimilate the contents of the podcasts.
• Monograph choices enable a decolonising approach which allows students to compare diverse settings in detail and ask questions about whether and why the body of the ethnographer matters. It also enables the overturning of common assumptions about self and other where self is perceived to be more secular, rational etc.
• Oral presentations using VoiceThread build transferable skills, as students learn to verbalise complex ideas and present them concisely and directly. Having these in the middle of semester enables detailed feedback and improves written as well as spoken communication.

Overall, all of the Social Anthropology classes are built on a culture of feedback and mutual learning. For example:

• We run mid-semester evaluations so that lecturers can make appropriate changes to the class for the rest of the semester, responding to student feedback.
• In some modules, students do required readings collaboratively, using an annotation software where they share comments and questions around the readings. They approach learning as a social and collective practice.
• Marking criteria are discussed with students so that they can suggest changes and clarifications over the course of the semester. In some classes, this is done by asking students to annotate the marking criteria and suggest changes, or devoting one week in the middle of the semester to discussing essay writing skills and the marking criteria. This creates a sense of ownership over the marking process.

We are constantly in conversation with students, both through formal avenues such as student reps and in informal gatherings at the pub, to keep innovating our teaching practices.

Information about studying Social Anthropology at The University of Manchester

People in the Social Anthropology Department