Anthropology and Sociology BSc

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.

• Key Ideas in Sociology

  Key themes in sociology are explored through theoretical and empirical analysis. You will do this by examining some of the most important ideas of leading sociologists and critically engage with their theories through empirical illustrations. 

• 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.

• Global London

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.  

• 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.

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.

• 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. 

• Colonialism, Migration and Global Racism

  This module explores the concept, meaning and practices of ‘race’, ethnicity, racialization, and global racisms. It identifies how ‘race’ and racism have evolved over time, and in different contexts - both nationally in the contemporary UK as well as in other parts of the world. 

• 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 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Popular Culture and Creative Industries

  This module explores how meanings are developed through contemporary cultural representations, practices and processes, with a focus on creativity and the creative industries sector. It examines popular culture and the rise of the creative and cultural sector in late modernity drawing on relevant sociological, media and cultural studies debates and theories. 

• Researching Your World

  This module provides an advanced understanding of research methodologies, with a particular focus on data analysis. Equipping students with an understanding and appreciation of the important theoretical paradigms that underpin qualitative and quantitative social and communications research traditions. Furnishing students with the tools and skills required to conduct and evaluate their own empirical social and communications research.

• Sociology of Everyday Life: Issues in Contemporary Culture

  In this module you will consider the meanings of ordinary, ‘everyday’ processes and actions in society, by examining what everyday life consists of and the relevant academic debates and theories around it. The module will encourage you to reflect on your own everyday life through the lense of power, identity and gender in wider socio-cultural contexts.

• 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.

• 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’.

• 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.

Compulsory

• Advanced Research Skills for Anthropology
• Anthropology and Sociology Dissertation

  The dissertation enables the student to demonstrate their abilities to plan, design and execute a research project.

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.

• Cities, Power and Social Change

  An introduction to urban sociology and will develop the students understanding of urban development, cultures, and representation. The course will offer theoretical tools and provide practical applications for the relationship between space, culture, and social life in contemporary cities.

• 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.

• 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 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.

• 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.

• Global Migration

  Equips students with an understanding of the key concepts in global migration including the causes and consequences of migration, national and international responses to migration and the diversity of migrant flows within a global context, using cases from both Global North and Global South contexts.

• 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.

• Sociological Career Development

  This module will provide students with a critical overview of working in industries that draw on or are connected with sociological knowledge from direct encounters with industry professionals, companies or institutions. Drawing on a variety of formats, the module will support students’ understanding of, competence and confidence in working independently in a professional manner appropriate to ‘sociological’ industries.

• 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’.

• 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.