Overview
Studying anthropology at Brunel gives you the opportunity to do fully funded fieldwork placements anywhere in the world according to your anthropological interests.
Anthropology offers a unique and powerful means for understanding cultural and social diversity in the modern world. It considers issues which can lead to mind blowing revelations about how individuals and cultures experience life differently.
Anthropology is concerned with contemporary issues such as multiculturalism, identity politics, racism and ethnic nationalism, changing forms of the family, religious conflict, gender, and the political role of culture. It also addresses perennial questions about human nature, such as: ‘What do we have in common with each other cross-culturally?’ and ‘What makes us different?’.
If you are intrigued by these questions and want to study a discipline that will enrich your everyday life as well as equip you for a great variety of occupations, anthropology is the right course for you.
Fieldwork is excellent preparation for work and a chance to make useful contacts and will help to add greater meaning to academic studies. Around half of Brunel’s anthropology students carry out a placement or fieldwork abroad, in places as wide ranging as India, Nepal, Australia, South Africa, Papua New Guinea and Jamaica. Additionally with the fieldwork now funded as part of your degree, you can concentrate on your research rather than financial obstacles. Recent UK placement destinations include the Royal Anthropological Institute, Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, Amnesty International and the Department of Health.
Examples of dissertation titles based on fieldwork findings have included work in a Nepalese monastery, a South African women’s refuge, the Police Complaints Authority (on the Stephen Lawrence case), as well as in schools and charities.
Outside of classes, you can look forward to a one of the most cultural diverse campuses in the UK with opportunity to meet people from all over the world.Additionally, Brunel’s anthropological student society arrange class trips to places like the Pitt Rivers museum in Oxford, and the campus’s London location makes it ideal for exploring places like the British Museum in Central London.
You can explore our campus and facilities for yourself by taking our virtual tour.
Course content
Through a set of compulsory modules in your first year, you will gain a firm foundation in the central themes and debates in anthropology as you are introduced to the international work carried out by the teaching staff that explores the practicalities of undertaking anthropological funded fieldwork.
In years two and three, you will follow a pre-set group of compulsory modules according, plus optional modules choices according to your interests. Below is a list of the variety of modules typically taught within the subject.
Compulsory
- Anthropology in the World
An introduction to the field of social anthropology through reviews of some classic problems and topics. You will gain basic knowledge of the variety of human cultures as you discover the types of argument employed and forms of evidence characteristic of social anthropology.
- Beliefs and Ways of Thinking
Learn about the ways anthropologists interpret and explain systems of knowledge and belief and their ability to detach themselves from taken-for-granted beliefs and values to help them to appreciate the logic of others systems.
- Ethnographic Research Methods
This module takes students on a hands-on journey from designing a research question, through reflecting on ethics, to ethnographic fieldwork and the processes of analysis and writing-up that follow.
- Facing the Unfamiliar: Ethnographic Fieldwork Encounters
The aim of this module is to introduce students to individual staff members’ regional and thematic research interests. To that end, staff members present lectures that deal both with general themes in anthropology and very specific ethnographic problems they have experienced during their own fieldwork. Students will get a real feel for what anthropologists do and why they do it.
- Global London
Optional
- Migration and the Settler World, 1600-1914
The module explores the successive waves of overseas migration from Britain and Ireland to create settler societies around the globe between the early Stuart era and the First World War. The geographical coverage concentrates on the thirteen British colonies in North America before 1776, the Caribbean, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Together these parts of the world were the recipients of millions of British and Irish
- Modern South Asian History
This module introduces the colonial and post-colonial histories of one of the most populous regions in the world, South Asia. We focus on key political, social, religious, and cultural movements and events in the regions that became modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, and emphasise the plurality of South Asian historical experiences.
- Power, Inequality and Society
This module unpacks the definition, origins, evolution and trajectory of inequality in society through multiple empirical and theoretical angles. It also examines different manifestations of inequality including gender, income, educational and intersectional dynamics. Finally, it explores social mobility and how the state, charities as well as labour groups work towards redistribution of opportunities and resources.
Compulsory
- Ethnicity, Migration and Identity
Learn about the range of key concepts, theories, and controversies in the anthropology of ethnicity, culture, nationhood, and identity. Drawing on case studies from within and beyond Britain, it will encourage you to consider how identities are created, deployed, and contested.
- Kinship, Sex and Gender
An introduction to some of the key social anthropological literature on kinship, gender and sexuality including universalities and particularities in the construction of gender roles and different theoretical paradigms on gender and sexuality.
- Political and Economic Issues in Anthropology
In this topic you will be introduced to some of the key research topics in modern social anthropology, including aspects of political economy, social organisation, cultural systems, historical change, and theoretical frames through which to view them.
- Practising Anthropology
In this continuing module your learning will be based around three elements. In workshops, research methods will be introduced and practised with your peers, whilst seminar sessions will deepen your understanding of the methodological, political and ethical principles of action research. Later in the module, through extended workshop activity you will work in teams to plan a research project in response to a simulated social situation.
Optional
- Anthropology of Education and Learning
Gain an appreciation of the key issues in the anthropology of education and learning and an understanding, ethnographically, of how culture shapes and informs the educational and learning process an and in turn impacts social and cultural practices.
- Anthropology of the Body
Explore key theories of ‘the body’ in anthropology and other cognate discipline through the work of scholars such as Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault and Thomas Csordas. You will also be exposed to contemporary approaches to the study of subjectivity, personhood and experience across societies and cultures.
- Anthropology of the Person
Anthropological approaches to understanding ‘the person’ are discussed through the work of theorists such as Mauss and Hacking including contemporary approaches to the study of subjectivity, personhood and experience in formal and informal environments.
- Australia and The Modern World
The module focuses on Australia’s connections with the wider world from the European maritime voyages to the Pacific in the eighteenth century up to contemporary times. Major themes dealing with varied aspects of Australia’s role in the modern world have been selected for study.
- Body, Media and Society
In this module we will examine many different aspects of embodiment and bodies in society, with a focus on the role of media in representing, stereotyping, and medicalising different kinds of bodies.
- Climate Politics
This module aims to enable students to attain a comprehensive understanding of key concepts and theories in the politics and political economy of climate change. It will provide students with resources to assist them in making informed judgments on a range of questions and debates.
- Colonialism and Decolonization in Africa
Africa is one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented regions of the modern world. More often than not, its history is presented as a long series of human disasters, conflict, and disorder. However, Africa’s modern history is also one of resistance, and dynamic and creative responses to changing circumstances. This module examines Africa’s multifaceted history since about 1800.
- Critical Perspectives on International Development
You will gain a theoretical and historical overview of the changing relationship between anthropology and international development as you learn to understand the multiple ways in which anthropological research can enhance our understanding of contemporary policies and practices in international development.
- Digital Culture
This module considers the shape of new media technologies such as iPhones – it explores how new developments in media technology have changed the basis of contemporary social life and culture. This module will examine some of the key transformations that are taking place through digital culture.
- Ethnography of a Selected Region
In this module you will grasp the interplay between ethnographic observations during fieldwork and theory building during the write up process. You will examine key cultural issues for the region, covering topics such as religion, nationalism, economics, and the interplay of politics and memory.
- Gangs, Street Culture and Crime
Students will be introduced to the history and the various theoretical debates surrounding the nature of street gangs and street cultural formation. Using a wide range of criminological and empirical research, the causes of gangs and street culture, and the responses to this global phenomenon will be considered.
- Gender, Sexuality and Feminism
This module will introduce students to core ideas in feminism via the key concepts of gender and sexuality. It will develop students’ understandings of social structures, human cultures, and economic inequalities and political relationships. The course will offer theoretical tools and historical insights into gendered, feminised, and sexualised socio-cultural worlds.
- Global Communication
Examine the ways in which the globalisation of communication has transformed social, political, and economic relations. The following themes will be addressed in this module: the state, economy, power, globalisation, nationalism, identity, digitisation, culture and consumerism, media markets, public relations and politics, and political economy of communication.
- Global Health in Anthropological Perspective
This module explores what anthropology can contribute to debates around global health issues.
- The State and Revolution
This module provides students with an understanding of the historical emergence of two of the central concepts of modern political thought: the state and revolution, or the constitution of political order and the process of fundamental political transformation. We study the development of these concepts in some of the major events of political modernity, from the 16th to the 19th centuries.
- Themes in Psychological and Psychiatric Anthropology
Learn about the development of psychological and psychiatric anthropology including theories of emotion, psychoanalytic approaches, folk psychologies, culture and personality, mental health and cultural perspectives on 'madness'.
- Understanding Childhood and Youth
This module will introduce you to the study of childhood and youth as they are constructed and practiced in different social, cultural and economic settings. The first section focuses on children, looking first at how ideas of childhood are constructed by adults, the second section is devoted to young people.
- Unity and Cultural Diversity
In this module students will gain an understanding of the texts of political theorists who focus on the issue of fostering unity among the culturally diverse citizens of a modern polity. Students will also gain an understanding of case studies that help to illuminate the difficulties of fostering unity among the culturally diverse citizens of a modern polity.
- War and Humanitarianism
This module aims to provide students with a critical understanding of the main themes in the anthropology of war and humanitarian assistance. These include the anthropology of violence, how societies respond in the aftermath of violence, the origins of humanitarianism, the concept of emergency, refugees and Giorgio Agamben’s concept of ‘bare life’.
- Ethnography in South Asia
This module explores classic anthropological themes -- such as community, class, kinship, gender, and globalisation -- through an indepth focus on a particular ethnographic region: South Asia and its diasporas.
- Crime and Deviance in Society
An introduction to notions of deviance in terms of othering, stigma, and criminalisation. It will consider the changing nature of deviance, how perceptions of deviance change over time, and how these perceptions impact on individuals and communities. Deviance will be studied through a number of different lenses that consider deviance as a part of a process of oppression but also a source of resistance.
- Sustainable Development and Political Ecology
Students will engage critically with principles and practices of sustainable development and learn to understand environmental questions through a lens of political ecology. The module will provide opportunities for students to develop their own of attitudes and values in relation to the environment.
- Urban Regeneration and Inequalities (field-based)
You are introduced to issues of urban regeneration and their impacts in relation to urban inequalities, and apply this understanding in relation initially to London and subsequently to a European city in which they undertake a field visit.
- Climate Politics
This module aims to enable students to attain a comprehensive understanding of key concepts and theories in the politics and political economy of climate change. It will provide students with resources to assist them in making informed judgments on a range of questions and debates.
Compulsory
- Advanced Research Skills for Anthropology
- Contemporary Anthropological Theory
This module offers a historical and critical perspective on the development of theories and methods in social anthropology from around 1980 to the present day, focussing on contemporary theoretical debates and how these have shaped the discipline of anthropology.
- Anthropology DissertationThe opportunity to carry out a major research project in social anthropology based around your own fieldwork.
Optional
- Anthropology of Education and Learning
Gain an appreciation of the key issues in the anthropology of education and learning and an understanding, ethnographically, of how culture shapes and informs the educational and learning process an and in turn impacts social and cultural practices.
- Anthropology of the Body
Explore key theories of ‘the body’ in anthropology and other cognate discipline through the work of scholars such as Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault and Thomas Csordas. You will also be exposed to contemporary approaches to the study of subjectivity, personhood and experience across societies and cultures.
- Anthropology of the Person
Anthropological approaches to understanding ‘the person’ are discussed through the work of theorists such as Mauss and Hacking including contemporary approaches to the study of subjectivity, personhood and experience in formal and informal environments.
- Apocalypse! Crisis and Society
Explore the social & political significance of representations of national and global crises, and public perceptions of controversies. Students analyse dystopian popular and scientific discourses that dwell on disorder and catastrophe. Indicative content includes risk, uncertainty, globalisation, the environment, disease, capitalism. Public understanding, perception and engagement with popular and scientific controversies and notions of crisis.
- Critical Perspectives on International Development
You will gain a theoretical and historical overview of the changing relationship between anthropology and international development as you learn to understand the multiple ways in which anthropological research can enhance our understanding of contemporary policies and practices in international development.
- Drugs, Crime and Criminal Justice
Examine historical and current debates concerning the criminalisation of a variety of drugs. This will introduce students to debates about the impact of the criminalisation of drugs on marginalised communities. Students will be introduced to debates about global drug markets and the changing nature of those markets over time.
- Environment and Sustainability
The aim of this module is to look at environment and sustainability from a multipronged perspective. The module will help students develop a nuanced understanding about managing our natural resources. Both top down and bottom up approaches to manage nature will be explored.
- Ethnography of a Selected Region
In this module you will grasp the interplay between ethnographic observations during fieldwork and theory building during the write up process. You will examine key cultural issues for the region, covering topics such as religion, nationalism, economics, and the interplay of politics and memory.
- Global Health in Anthropological Perspective
This module explores what anthropology can contribute to debates around global health issues.
- Lawyers, Guns and Money: Making the Modern World System
This module will explore issues raised by historical and political sociology regarding the development of the modern world-system. In particular the course will focus upon the rise to dominance of Europe in the building of the modern world-system and the explanations offered for this.
- Making the Social
An introduction to core concepts in social theory. The emphasis is on concepts through which students can relate to the worlds they inhabit and the lives they live, connecting these to a broad canvas: the diversity of social existence and the sweep of human history. The focus is on basic building blocks of social existence.
- Media, Social Movements and Change
The module provides students with an understanding of how social movements occur, succeed, or fail in bringing social and/or political change. By focusing on empirical cases, students will study the use of old and new media tools, the role of leaders and collective identity formation during the social movements, as well as governmental and international responses to these developments.
- Medical Anthropology in Clinical and Community Settings
Delve into the contemporary texts that have contributed to the development of medical anthropology as you consider its innovations and how the application of anthropological research in the subject can contribute to improving medical practices.
- Psychosocial Perspectives on Crime and Violence
An interdisciplinary module which explores the psychosocial underpinnings of crime and violence in the contemporary world. It offers students the opportunity to move beyond common sense understandings of crime and criminal justice to consider the interconnected psychic, social and cultural processes involved in the development of criminal social identities.
- Religion and Power in South Asian History
What is the relationship between religious identity and social, political, military, or economic power? In this module, we examine the role that religious practice and belief has played in South Asian societies from the early modern through the contemporary era. We introduce the intersecting histories of major South Asian religions, including Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, and Buddhism, among others.
- Social Media and Society
This module will enable students to critically engage and analyse the historical and current impact of social media on social relations and contemporary culture. It will allow students to develop a critical understanding of social media in the context of broader changes in the media landscape, and how it impacts identity, power and everyday life.
- Social Reproduction and Care
This module aims to introduce students to theoretical debates in feminism about social reproduction and care. It will offer a broad history of such debates and update these with new theoretical interventions in this field that have arisen in recent times, particularly in the context of the pandemic.
- South Asia – Societies and Development
In this module we explore the theoretical and empirical debates surrounding the politics, society and economics of South Asia as a region and its place in the larger world. We focus in particular on countries of the Indian subcontinent that were former colonies of the British Raj – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
- The Arab-Israeli Conflict
We survey the Arab-Israeli conflict, covering three overarching themes: 1) Origins of the Conflict; 2) Evolution of the Conflict; and 3) Peace and its Limits. The module covers the origins of both national movements, the development of the conflict under British rule, the major Arab-Israeli wars, peace agreements, and it ends with recent events.
- Themes in Psychological and Psychiatric Anthropology
Learn about the development of psychological and psychiatric anthropology including theories of emotion, psychoanalytic approaches, folk psychologies, culture and personality, mental health and cultural perspectives on 'madness'.
- Understanding Childhood and Youth
This module will introduce you to the study of childhood and youth as they are constructed and practiced in different social, cultural and economic settings. The first section focuses on children, looking first at how ideas of childhood are constructed by adults, the second section is devoted to young people.
- Violence and Conflict in Eastern Africa
In this module students will explore the role of violence and conflict in the course of eastern Africa’s modern history. Students will gain an in depth understanding of the ways in which violence and conflict have influenced economy, society and polity in the modern era, through a consideration of broad themes, such as age, ethnicity, and resources, as well as specific case studies taken from across the region.
- War and Humanitarianism
This module aims to provide students with a critical understanding of the main themes in the anthropology of war and humanitarian assistance. These include the anthropology of violence, how societies respond in the aftermath of violence, the origins of humanitarianism, the concept of emergency, refugees and Giorgio Agamben’s concept of ‘bare life’.
- Ethnography in South Asia
This module explores classic anthropological themes -- such as community, class, kinship, gender, and globalisation -- through an indepth focus on a particular ethnographic region: South Asia and its diasporas.
- Environment Justice
- Race, Class and Space
This module introduces you to contemporary debates on race, class, and space. You'll become familiarised with different theoretical positions, and ways in which race and class are spatially structured.
This course can be studied undefined undefined, starting in undefined.
This course has a placement option. Find out more about work placements available.
Please note that all modules are subject to change.
Read more about the structure of undergraduate degrees at Brunel.
Careers and your future
As a graduate of a three year anthropology degree, your research and fieldwork experience, which forms such a major part of our degree course, will help to set you apart from other graduates.
These placements build up fantastic experience and can connect you with organisations and people who will be invaluable when it comes to progressing your career.
Brunel anthropology graduates have gone on to work at the World Bank, UNICEF, the NHS, NGOs and charities such as Oxfam and Save the Children, as well as local government, legal sectors and the media.
Graduates have also gone on to work as teachers, journalists and research officers in the health and social sectors, and in other professions requiring knowledge of social and cultural processes.
Others go on to pursue further research degrees in anthropology and become academic anthropologists.
UK entry requirements
2024/25 entry
- GCSE A-level ABB-BBC.
- BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma DDM in any subject.
- BTEC Level 3 Diploma DM in any subject AND an A-Level at grade B.
- BTEC Level 3 Subsidiary Diploma D in any subject AND A-Levels grade BC.
- International Baccalaureate Diploma 30 points.
- Obtain a minimum of 120 UCAS tariff points in the Access to HE Diploma with 45 credits at Level 3
- T levels : Merit overall
A minimum of five GCSEs are required, including GCSE Mathematics grade C or grade 4 and GCSE English Language grade C or grade 4 or GCSE English Literature grade B or grade 5.
Brunel University London is committed to raising the aspirations of our applicants and students. We will fully review your UCAS application and, where we’re able to offer a place, this will be personalised to you based on your application and education journey.
Please check our Admissions pages for more information on other factors we use to assess applicants as well as our full GCSE requirements and accepted equivalencies in place of GCSEs.
EU and International entry requirements
If you require a Tier 4 visa to study in the UK, you must prove knowledge of the English language so that we can issue you a Certificate of Acceptance for Study (CAS). To do this, you will need an IELTS for UKVI or Trinity SELT test pass gained from a test centre approved by UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) and on the Secure English Language Testing (SELT) list. This must have been taken and passed within two years from the date the CAS is made.
English language requirements
- IELTS: 6.5 (min 5.5 in all areas)
- Pearson: 59 (59 in all subscores)
- BrunELT: 63% (min 55% in all areas)
- TOEFL: 90 (min R18, L17, S20, W17)
You can find out more about the qualifications we accept on our English Language Requirements page.
Should you wish to take a pre-sessional English course to improve your English prior to starting your degree course, you must sit the test at an approved SELT provider for the same reason. We offer our own BrunELT English test and have pre-sessional English language courses for students who do not meet requirements or who wish to improve their English. You can find out more information on English courses and test options through our Brunel Language Centre.
Please check our Admissions pages for more information on other factors we use to assess applicants. This information is for guidance only and each application is assessed on a case-by-case basis. Entry requirements are subject to review, and may change.
Fees and funding
2024/25 entry
UK
£9,250 full-time
£1,385 placement year
International
£19,430 full-time
£1,385 placement year
Fees quoted are per year and may be subject to an annual increase. Home undergraduate student fees are regulated and are currently capped at £9,250 per year; any changes will be subject to changes in government policy. International fees will increase annually, by no more than 5% or RPI (Retail Price Index), whichever is the greater.
More information on any additional course-related costs.
See our fees and funding page for full details of undergraduate scholarships available to Brunel applicants.
Please refer to the scholarships pages to view discounts available to eligible EU undergraduate applicants.
Teaching and learning
You'll be taught by world-leading experts in your field of study, and have the opportunity to interact with fellow students at London’s leading campus University.
Your programme will consist of a variety of learning and studying activities, including lectures, seminars and discussions. You'll study six modules during two terms across the academic year (four modules and a dissertation in the third year). Each module will have on average two to three hours of in-person contact time per week in lectures, seminars and workshops in the teaching terms. There'll also be the opportunity for a further six hours per week to seek guidance during module lecturers’ feedback and consultation hours.
Additionally, you'll be able to seek support in individual meetings with their personal tutors, both on-campus and online. There'll also be regular cohort meetings and student society events, at both programme and departmental level. Field trips and excursions to support your learning will be organised throughout the year.
All lectures, seminars, cohort meetings and other social activities will occur in person on the Brunel campus. You regularly attend these events, as sustained engagement with a learning community is a central dimension of the Brunel experience. Online provision of some activities will be made available when it is appropriate to the learning outcomes of your programme.
Access to a laptop or desktop PC is required for joining online activities, completing coursework and digital exams, and a minimum specification can be found here.
We have computers available across campus for your use and laptop loan schemes to support you through your studies. You can find out more here.
The Anthropology BSc at Brunel consistently ranks within the top quartile for student satisfaction for anthropology nationally.
You'll be taught by an internationally respected team of anthropologists who have conducted fieldwork in five continents on religion, witchcraft, disability, memory, nationalism, childhood and education, political violence, social hierarchies, race, ethnicity, and ecology.
Like most social science subjects, anthropology is taught through a mixture of lectures and small discussion groups or seminars. For each module, you'll usually attend one lecture and one seminar every week.
Uniquely for a UK university, studying anthropology at Brunel will always mean applying what you have read to what you discover in real-life situations with the opportunity to conduct funded fieldwork experience anywhere in the world.
Find out about some of our students’ experiences on the Anthropology work placements page.
Should you need any non-academic support during your time at Brunel, the Student Support and Welfare Team are here to help.
Assessment and feedback
There are no examinations for our anthropology degree. Assessment is typically by essay or practical assignments (for example, analysis of a short field exercise), and a dissertation of approximately 10,000 to 15,000 words based upon your own fieldwork experience anywhere in the world.
Read our guide on how to avoid plagiarism in your assessments at Brunel.