cambridge anthropology phd

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Biological Anthropology: Postgraduate Studies

• Prospective MPhil Students
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Biological Anthropology at Cambridge offers four different options to study at Postgraduate level, covering all major fields within the discipline:

The unifying theme across our teaching is the understanding of humans, past and present, from an evolutionary perspective. To achieve this, BioAnth at Cambridge looks at humans in the context of other animals, in particular the primates, the behaviour and biology of humans throughout their evolutionary history, as well as the study of human populations today in terms of their genetic diversity, evolutionary ecology, growth, development and health. These topics are explored through a wide range of scientific tools, from genetics, to morphology, archaeology, physiology, ethology, and statistics.

BioAnth Graduate Tutor: TBA

Postgraduate Admissions:  Katie Teague

Course enquiries: Teaching administrator

Postal Address: Department of Archaeology Downing Street CB2 3DZ Cambridge

Information provided by: 

[email protected]

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social anthropology

Topic description and stories.

Vision in the field: Photography from social anthropology

The University’s Department of Social Anthropology studies how people live: what they make, do, think and the organisation of their relationships...

Drowning in a paper sea: India’s welfare efforts failed by its peculiar bureaucracy

India’s sophisticated laws and progressive policies fail with startling regularity. A new study locates a possible reason as to why in the convoluted...

Rivers beyond Regeneration

Best-known for his treatment of shell-shock victims in World War I, a new study examines William Rivers’ crucial, but often overlooked contributions...

Looking for the good

Anthropology looks at human differences in its study of the ‘other’ and at human commonalities in its more recent focus on the ‘suffering’. In...

Reporting from Zimbabwe: a visit to Harare’s biggest township

In the township of Mbare, anthropology student Rowan Jones finds a complex picture of poverty and propaganda - plus a baffling level of support for...

Shooting in the field: capturing life as it’s lived

A student photography competition showcases some of the stunning visuals that result from modern Social Anthropology research

Fostering understanding between the Islamic world and the West

Frankie Martin, MPhil student in the Department of Social Anthropology will speak tonight at the showing of a documentary Journey into America: The...

A border without frontiers

As India sets about constructing a metal curtain along the full length of its border with Bangladesh, Cambridge anthropology graduate Delwar Hussain...

Protestantism, prawns and politics in Scotland and Northern Ireland

With church attendance dwindling, it’s easy to ignore the pockets of radical Protestantism that continue to flourish in many small communities...

Rainforest remedy could spell end of dental pain

An ancient Incan toothache remedy – for centuries handed down among an indigenous people in the rainforests of Peru – could be on the cusp of...

No such thing as a free lunch?

The process of giving and receiving (and being in debt) is an inescapable part of human experience. From sub-prime lending and student loans to organ...

A strange way to share food

Close scrutiny of the ancient remains of our ancestors’ meals gives us some sense of the development and rationale behind our strange food-sharing...

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Supervisors - Middle Eastern Studies

Dr Anderson is open to receiving applications for MPhil and PhD projects from students with a training in social anthropology, who want to work on projects that contribute to current debates in anthropology, particularly in relation to the anthropology of Islam, ethics or commerce; or the anthropology of Syria.

Applicants for PhD study should have some prior academic training in anthropology, which is also usually offered as part of the MPhil by advanced study programme.

Dr Ashraf welcomes inquiries from prospective MPhil and PhD students who are interested in projects relating to the history of Iran and the Persian-speaking world, from the early modern to modern periods broadly defined.

Professor Bennison is happy to supervise graduate students in work relating to the pre-modern history of the Maghrib and Islamic cultural history, including the Medieval Islamic West

Professor Khan is happy to supervise projects relating to any area of his research.

Professor Marsham is happy to supervise graduate students in work relating to pre-modern Islamic History.

Dr Monier is open to supervising research on the following topics:

The politics of the modern Arab World.

State-Society relations in Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, the UAE, Bahrain and Oman.

Nationalism and state-building.

Identity politics and sectarianism.

Minorities.

Regional power, geopolitics and Arab diplomacy.

Arabic media.

Professor Montgomery is currently on sabbatical

Dr Olszok is happy to supervise students who wish to work in fields of Arabic literature in which she has expertise.

Prof Peleg welcomes inquiries from potential MPhil and PhD students with research interests relevant to his interests in modern Hebrew literary history, Israeli cinema and Israeli culture more generally, primarily the creation of a native Hebrew culture in Palestine/Eretz Israel at the beginning of the twentieth century and its legacy.

Prof van Ruymbeke welcomes approaches from potential graduate students with research interests relevant to hers. She requests that prospective students email her to discuss their proposed projects before sending in their applications. Dr Christine van Ruymbeke talks about postgraduate studies in Persian Literature

Supervisors - East Asian Studies

Having supervised graduate students in a range of fields, including premodern and modern Japanese history, premodern literature as well as Buddhism, Professor Adolphson would welcome enquiries from motivated graduate students and young scholars from across the world.

I am happy to supervise postgraduate research students in the areas of Chinese religious and ritual life; social and cultural change in modern/contemporary China; Chinese environmentalism(s); the local state; urban renewal; China and the overseas Chinese and other topics relating to social anthropology of contemporary China.

I supervise students for both MPhil and PhD research on a wide range of topics. Current and past students have worked on topics including: the financing of the local state through land sales; the PRC’s bilingual policies for minority nationalities; political factors in the pricing of traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy in contemporary China; economic development and religion in a Shanxi Catholic village; overseas Chinese students' luxury consumption; urban re-development and city branding; the rise of vegetarian restaurants in Taiwan; court practices in contemporary urban China; Chinese-language schools and the re-sinicisation of the Sino-Thai; self-portraits in contemporary Chinese avant-garde art; neighbourhood dance groups and contested urban spaces; Haier in India; migrant workers' protests; the development of heritage culture in a local town in Shandong; the registration of householder Daoist priests; the late Qing government's policies towards the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia; mainland Chinese immigrants in a new town in the New Territories of Hong Kong; the culture of wine drinking and connoisseurship in contemporary urban China; Hui Muslim cultural practices and identity in China; civil society and popular bloggers; the contemporary Chinese painter LIU Ye; Chinese foodways in the era of the internet; Tibetan Buddhism amongst the Han; the worship of the Yellow Emperor in contemporary China; money and popular religion in north China; goddess cults in southeast coastal China; Buddhist clerics in Wuhan during the early PRC period; temple cults in Malaysia; the formation of the 'education sphere' (教育界) in China in the early 20th century; name-changing practices amongst the Sino-Thai; etc.

I will be on sabbatical leave during the 2025-26 academic year and will not take on new MPhil students for that year. However, I will still consider PhD applications for 2025 entry.

I welcome proposals for graduate work in the areas of late-imperial Chinese literature, print culture, and Chinese religions.

Dr Inwood is happy to supervise students in topics relating to her research on modern and contemporary Chinese literature, culture and media.

Prof. Kushner is pleased to supervise graduate students interested in imperial and postwar Japanese history, 20th century Japan-Taiwan, as well as Sino-Japanese relations, the history of the Cold War in East Asia, and history of war crimes in East Asia.

Prof Moretti welcomes graduate students interested in Japanese premodern and early modern literature. She also strongly encourages projects that investigate early modern Japanese culture more broadly, including visual culture and woodblock prints; book history and/or textual scholarship in Japan; Japanese palaeography and calligraphy, and art.. She is also keen to supervise projects that work on issues of adaptation, canon-making, intervisuality, playfulness, humour, satire, metafiction, didactic prose, medicine in popular culture, and transmedia storytelling.

Dr Nilsson-Wright is happy to supervise graduate students who wish to work on East Asian politics, international relations and diplomatic history, particularly with reference to Japan, North and South Korea and US relations with Northeast Asia.

Dr Steger welcomes inquiries from talented young scholars to work under her supervision. She is willing and able to supervise a wide range of topics related to Japanese contemporary society. Please contact her by e-mail prior to application and submit a draft research proposal (ask for guidelines).

Chinese thought; pre-imperial and early imperial cultural history; natural history; classical Chinese language.

Prof. Sterckx will be on research leave during the academic year 2024-25 and is unable to take new students or host visiting scholars during that period.

Prof van de Ven is happy to supervise graduate students in a range of topics relating to modern Chinese history. He is interested in the history of war, the history of the Chinese Communist Party, and economic and political history. 

Prof van de Ven is not currently taking any MPhil students.

*** Dr Young will be on sabbatical Lent and Easter 2024 and therefore not able to take one-year MPhil applicants intending to commence study in Oct 2023 ***

Dr Young is pleased to supervise graduate students interested in modern and contemporary Japanese and Okinawan literature, particularly where linked to themes and issues of imperialism, decolonisation, gender and sexuality, multilinguality, and translation.    

Supervisors - South Asian Studies

Prof. Vergiani is happy to supervise graduate students on work relating to his research.

Key contact

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Professor Joseph Webster

Joseph Webster is Professor of the Anthropology of Religion, having first taken up his position in the Divinity Faculty in 2019.

Previous to this he held the position of Lecturer in Anthropology at Queen's University Belfast (2013-19), and Isaac Newton - Graham Robertson Research Fellow in Social Anthropology and Sociology at Downing College, Cambridge (2011-13).

His MA(Hons) in Sociology and Social Anthropology, and his MRes and PhD in Social Anthropology were all obtained at the University of Edinburgh (2003-12).

Professor Webster won a  Philip Leverhulme Prize in 2020 to conduct new ethnographic research on 'The Morality of Millenarianism' (research leave from October 2021 until October 2023).

Professor Webster was named Teaching and Learning Fellow for 2021 by the British Association for the Study of Religion, awarded in recognition of his contribution to the innovation and transformation of the student learning experience. He was also elected to serve on the BASR Executive Committee in 2021.

Professor Webster co-founded the Cambridge Anthropology-Theology (CAT) Network with Susie Triffitt (PhD candidate) in 2021 as an online seminar series exploring new research dialogues between the two disciplines.  

Professor Webster's primary research interest concerns the Anthropology of Religion, with a particular focus on Protestantism in Scotland and the global north.

His first monograph,  The Anthropology of Protestantism (2013), is an ethnography of apocalyptic sign searching within an Exclusive Brethren fishing community in Northeast Scotland. This book was featured on BBC Radio 4, in an episode of Thinking Allowed . 

His second monograph,  The Religion of Orange Politics   (2020), is an ethnographic account of ethno-religious nationalism within the Orange Order, Scotland's largest Protestant-only fraternity. This book was also featured on BBC Radio 4, in an episode of Thinking Allowed , as well as in New Humanist magazine.

His new research project, 'The Morality of Millenarianism' ( Leverhulme Trust PLP-2020-015 ), examines the moral, hermeneutical, and eschatological commitments of Jehovah's Witnesses in the ethnographic context of post-Brexit Northern Ireland.

Professor Webster's specific research interests include:

• Protestant fundamentalism, millenarianism, apocalypticism

• Ethno-religious nationalism, unionism, loyalism, the Orange Order

• Personhood, fraternity, hate

• Sectarianism, football fandom, and debates about free speech

• North Atlantic, Britain, Scotland, Northern Ireland

• The relationship between Anthropology and Theology

Publications

Webster, J. (2020; pb. 2022 ). The Religion of Orange Politics: Protestantism and Fraternity in Contemporary Scotland   Manchester: MUP

Webster, J. (2013; pb 2015). The Anthropology of Protestantism: Faith and Crisis among Scottish Fishermen   New York: Palgrave

Special Issues

Lynch, R., Sturm, T. and Webster, J. (2021). 'Apocalyptic futures: morality, health, and wellbeing at the end of the world'. Introduction to 'The Apocalypse and Other Crises' in Anthropology and Medicine   28(1): 1-12.

Webster, J. (2022). 'Nor Shadow of Turning: Anthropological Reflections on Theological Critiques of Doctrinal Change' in  Australian Journal of Anthropology  33(3): 360-382.

Webster, J. (2022). 'From Scottish Independence, to Brexit, and Back Again: Orange Order ethno-religion and the awkward urgency of British unionism' in  Social Anthropology  30(4): 18-36.

Webster, J. (2022). 'Anthropology-as-Theology: Violent Endings and the Permanence of New Beginnings' in  American Anthropologist   124: 333-344.

Webster, J. (2022). 'Whose Sins Do the Brethren Confess? The Problem of Sin as the Problem of Expiation' in  Ethnos  87(4): 679-695.

Webster, J. (2021). 'Dual Classification Revisited: Rodney Needham and Vertical Asymmetry aboard Scottish Trawlers in  Maritime Studies   20: 371-385.

Webster, J. (2021). 'Embodied Apocalypse: Or the Native Cosmology of Late Modern Social Theory' in  Anthropology and Medicine   28(1): 13-27.

Webster, J. (2020). 'Prosperity Pentecostalism as Theological Presentism' (Comment) in  Current Anthropology  61(1): 71-72.

Webster, J. (2020). 'Denominations as (Theological) Institutions: An Afterward' in  Anthropological Quarterly   92(4): 1123-1134.

Webster, J. (2017). 'Praying for Salvation: A Map of Relatedness' in  Religion   47(1): 19-34.

Webster, J. (2013). 'The Eschatology of Global Warming in a Scottish Fishing Village' in  Cambridge Anthropology   31(1): 68-84.

Webster, J. (2012). 'The Immanence of Transcendence: God and the Devil on the Aberdeenshire Coast' in  Ethnos   78(3): 380-402.

Webster, J. (2008). 'Establishing the 'Truth' of the Matter: Confessional Reflexivity as Introspection and Avowal' in  Psychology and Society   1(1): 65-76.

Book Chapters

Webster, J. (In Press). 'When Witnesses Talk Back: Ethnographic and Eschatological Reflections on Experiences of Intolerance among Jehovah's Witnesses in Contemporary Northern Ireland' in Essays on Minority Religions and Religious Tolerance: The Jehovah's Witnesses Test  by Baran, E. B. and Knox, Z. (eds.) London: Bloomsbury.

Hickman, J. and Webster, J. (In Press). 'Millenarianism' in  The Oxford Handbook of the Anthropology of Religion  by Robbins, J. and Coleman, S. (eds.) Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Webster, J. (In Press). 'Approaches through Materiality' in  The Oxford Handbook of the Anthropology of Religion  by Robbins, J. and Coleman, S. (eds.) Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Webster, J. (2022). 'Geography as Eschatology: Prophecy Fulfilment on Land and at Sea' in  Landscapes of Christianity  by Bielo, J. and Ron, A. (eds). London: Bloomsbury.

Webster, J. (2021). 'Praying for Salvation: A Map of Relatedness' in  The Social Life of Prayer: Anthropological Engagements with Christian Practice  by Bandak, A. (ed.) London: Routledge.

Webster, J. (2018). 'The Exclusive Brethren Doctrine of Separation: An Anthropology of Theology in  Theologically Engaged Anthropology  by Lemons, D. (ed.) Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Webster, J. (2015). 'Objects of Transcendence: Scots-Protestantism and an Anthropology of Things' in  Material Religion in Modern Britain  by Jones, T. and Matthews-Jones, L. (eds.) New York: Palgrave.

Teaching and Supervisions

A6 - Understanding Contemporary Religion

D2b - Apocalypse

Part II - Social Anthropology-Religious Studies Joint track in Modern Religion Seminar

MPhil - Contemporary Religious Conflict: Ethnographic Approaches

Professor Webster would be interested in supervising doctoral students whose work uses ethnographic methods to research any of the themes listed above (see 'Research' tab).

Topics of current postdoctoral and PhD students include:

•  Rastafari attitudes to millenarian violence in England

•  Protestant fundamentalism and conspiracy theories in Switzerland

• The 'belief curious' and evangelical conversion in England

•   Mormon attitudes to climate change in the US and UK 

Topics of past PhD students include:

•  The prosperity gospel and industrial capitalism in Northern Ireland

•  Conflict, austerity, and community arts in Northern Ireland

•  Symbols of Loyalism in Northern Ireland

•  The impact of Troubles-related memories in Northern Ireland

Other Professional Activities

Submitted as a REF2021 Impact Case Study , connected to his research on sectarianism , Professor Webster has undertaken work on the  Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012.  He acted as an expert witness to the  Scottish Parliament Justice Committee , giving evidence in support of repeal.

This aspect of his research has been profiled in the media, including in the  Times, Scotsman, Herald, Irish News, Sun,  and  Express  newspapers, as well as on STV's  Scotland Tonight.  Examples include:

Times : Statues are worth both defending and vandalising (op-ed: 18/06/20)

Times : Whipping and coffins at lodge ritual (article: 18/06/20)

Times : Banning sectarian parades would only deepen the hatred (op-ed: 03/09/19)

Times : Banning parades after Govan violence 'deeply problematic' (article: 02/09/19)

Sun : 'Sectarian' singing bring fans together leading expert claims (article: 10/03/18) 

Most recently, Professor Webster has advised the Scottish Government Community Safety Unit on issues relating to sectarianism and parading in the context of the newly passed Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 .

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The PhD course is intended for students who have already substantial theoretical background in Social Anthropology. It includes intensive fieldwork training in the first year, a research period of 12 to 18 months, and a further year for writing the dissertation (a maximum of four years is allowed in total). Students work with a main supervisor and an adviser, and the Division also provides training and specialist seminars. Opportunities are available for teaching practice for senior PhD students.

All first-year PhD students are admitted on a probationary basis. Successful completion of three Research Training Papers, a 7,000 word Research Proposal Portfolio and clearance to proceed to fieldwork from the PhD Committee are necessary for the Degree Committee to consider recommending that you be registered for the PhD degree.

The PhD course consists in the first place of nine months training in research issues and methods culminating in the preparation of a research proposal. This training can either be undertaken through the nine-month (three-term) Pre-Fieldwork Course or through the one-year MRes in Social Anthropology. If you are doing the Pre-Fieldwork Course, you can expect to leave for field research at the end of your third term (June-July). If you are doing the MRes course, you can expect to leave for fieldwork in your fourth term (October-December).

The taught element of this course consists of these compulsory streams:

• The Pre-fieldwork seminar;
• The Ethnographic Methods Course, Parts I (Michaelmas) and II (Lent);
• Statistics for Social Anthropologists (workshop in Michaelmas term).

You are also strongly encouraged to attend other optional elements:

• The ‘Experiences from the Field’ seminar, run by writing-up students recently returned from the field;
• Ad hoc sessions in transferable skills or anthropological method, such as journal publication, technologies of research and data management, film-making and research with children; 
•  Senior Research Seminar, scheduled for Fridays during term time. 

Students then usually undertake 12-18 months of ethnographic fieldwork. 

On return to Cambridge, students devote the remainder of their research time to writing their PhD dissertation in close consultation with their supervisor.

Upon return from fieldwork, writing-up students are expected to attend the following seminars during term-time:

• The PhD Writing-up seminar; 
• The Senior Research seminar;
• The Senior Research Seminar analysis session.

A PhD dissertation must not exceed 80,000 words, and will normally be near that length. The word limit includes appendices but excludes footnotes, references and bibliography. Footnotes should not exceed 20% of the dissertation. Discursive footnotes are generally discouraged, and under no circumstances should footnotes be used to include material that would normally be in the main text, and thus to circumvent the word limits. Statistical tables should be counted as 150 words per table. Only under exceptional circumstances, and after prior application, will the Degree Committee allow a student to exceed these limits. Applications should be made in good time before the date on which a candidate proposes to submit the dissertation, made to the Graduate Committee. A candidate must submit, with the dissertation, a statement signed by her or himself attesting to the length of the dissertation. Any dissertation that exceeds the limit will be referred back to candidate for revision before being forwarded to the examiners.

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• £50 application fee
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• Research Proposal. This is a vital document and it is not sufficient to simply fill in the proposal box (12A) on the application form. Applicants should head the document with their name and the title of their intended project. Proposals are usually a minimum of 1,000 words in length (excluding references) and should give a clear idea of the viability and importance of the research area. It should take note of relevant academic literature, and some thought should be given to the methodology by suggesting appropriate research methods.
• Sample of Work. 3,000 - 5,000 words. Applicants may submit a longer piece of work, but must highlight the section to be considered.
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Social Anthropology

The graduate program in Social Anthropology focuses on issues of globalism, ethnic politics, gender studies, “new” nationalisms, diaspora formation, transnationalism and local experience, medical anthropology, linguistic and semiotic anthropology, and media. Our mission is to develop new methodologies for an anthropology that tracks cultural developments in a global economy increasingly defined by the Internet and related technologies. Our graduate students (drawn from over 30 countries) expect to work in the worlds of academe, government, NGOs, law, medicine, and business.  

Knowing that material culture is a key element in the study of globalism and the new world economy, we work closely with staff from Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, who share our interests in redefining the study of popular culture, art, and the origins of industrial society. Research at the museum also makes it possible for us to maintain close ties to our departmental colleagues in the archaeology program.  

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Social Anthropology PhD

Awards: PhD

Study modes: Full-time, Part-time

Funding opportunities

Programme website: Social Anthropology

Discovery Day

Join us online on 21st August to learn more about postgraduate study at Edinburgh.

Find out more and register

Research profile

Our Social Anthropology group forms an international centre of excellence for postgraduate training, recognised as one of the premier research departments in the UK.

Edinburgh’s Social Anthropology department is among the largest in the UK, and our research interests are correspondingly diverse.

Our research is global in scope and includes core themes in:

• health and wellbeing
• religion and society
• migration and refugee studies
• science and technology
• the anthropology of kinship
• peace and conflict studies
• anthropology and the arts
• media anthropology
• cultural heritage
• international development
• human-animal relations
• the anthropology of design

Our work generally combines a traditional anthropological emphasis on ethnographic fieldwork with a focus on contemporary issues.

We welcome interdisciplinary research and are home to the Edinburgh Centre for Medical Anthropology (EdCMA), and numerous collaborations with the Edinburgh College of Art, including the Atelier Network.

We also work closely with the Centre for African Studies (CAS), particularly with research on international development.

Programme structure

Usually undertaken full-time over three years, or part-time over six years, the PhD in Social Anthropology is a research degree in which you will make an original contribution to our knowledge by pursuing an extended and focused piece of research on a topic of your interest.

The programme is supported by the Graduate School of Social and Political Science, which enables you to acquire a broader set of transferable skills during your time with us.

Training and support

The PhD programme combines work on your thesis project, usually based on long-term fieldwork, with systematic training in anthropological and social research skills.

A wide range of training facilities are available to PhD students. The Graduate School provides a range of ESRC-recognised research training courses for social science students across the University. You are encouraged to participate in taught Masters level courses to assist your intellectual development and support you research.

The University’s Institute for Academic Development provides a range of courses and events to assist with methodological training and career development.

• Institute for Academic Development

Research library and archive facilities in Edinburgh are outstanding.

You will be a member of the Graduate School of Social & Political Science, with full access to the Graduate School’s facilities in the Chrystal Macmillan Building.

Other library and archive facilities include the University’s Main Library, the National Library of Scotland and the Scottish Records Office. Proximity to the Scottish Parliament and other institutions of national government provides further research opportunities.

Entry requirements

These entry requirements are for the 2024/25 academic year and requirements for future academic years may differ. Entry requirements for the 2025/26 academic year will be published on 1 Oct 2024.

A UK 2:1 honours degree, or its international equivalent, in social anthropology. Your application will also be considered if you have a UK 2:1 honours degree, or its international equivalent, in another subject, and a postgraduate masters level degree in social anthropology.

International qualifications

Check whether your international qualifications meet our general entry requirements:

• Entry requirements by country
• English language requirements

Regardless of your nationality or country of residence, you must demonstrate a level of English language competency at a level that will enable you to succeed in your studies.

English language tests

We accept the following English language qualifications at the grades specified:

• IELTS Academic: total 7.0 with at least 6.0 in each component. We do not accept IELTS One Skill Retake to meet our English language requirements.
• TOEFL-iBT (including Home Edition): total 100 with at least 20 in each component. We do not accept TOEFL MyBest Score to meet our English language requirements.
• C1 Advanced ( CAE ) / C2 Proficiency ( CPE ): total 185 with at least 169 in each component.
• Trinity ISE : ISE III with passes in all four components.
• PTE Academic: total 70 with at least 59 in each component.

Your English language qualification must be no more than three and a half years old from the start date of the programme you are applying to study, unless you are using IELTS , TOEFL, Trinity ISE or PTE , in which case it must be no more than two years old.

Degrees taught and assessed in English

We also accept an undergraduate or postgraduate degree that has been taught and assessed in English in a majority English speaking country, as defined by UK Visas and Immigration:

• UKVI list of majority English speaking countries

We also accept a degree that has been taught and assessed in English from a university on our list of approved universities in non-majority English speaking countries (non-MESC).

• Approved universities in non-MESC

If you are not a national of a majority English speaking country, then your degree must be no more than five years old* at the beginning of your programme of study. (*Revised 05 March 2024 to extend degree validity to five years.)

Find out more about our language requirements:

Fees and costs

Tuition fees, scholarships and funding, featured funding.

School of Social and Political Science Scholarships

UK Research Council Awards

For specialised guidance on submitting a competitive scholarship application, please follow the requirements and recommendations and how to contact relevant academic staff as advised here:

• Important information and recommendations

UK government postgraduate loans

If you live in the UK, you may be able to apply for a postgraduate loan from one of the UK’s governments.

The type and amount of financial support you are eligible for will depend on:

• your programme
• the duration of your studies
• your tuition fee status

Programmes studied on a part-time intermittent basis are not eligible.

• UK government and other external funding

Other funding opportunities

Search for scholarships and funding opportunities:

• Search for funding

Further information

• Postgraduate Admissions Team
• Phone: +44 (0)131 650 4086
• Contact: [email protected]
• Programme Advisor, Dr Alice Street
• Contact: [email protected]
• Graduate School of Social & Political Science
• Chrystal Macmillan Building
• 15A George Square
• Central Campus
• Programme: Social Anthropology
• School: Social & Political Science
• College: Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

This programme is not currently accepting applications. Applications for the next intake usually open in October.

Start date: September

Awards: PhD (36 mth FT, 72 mth PT)

Application deadlines

We encourage you to apply at least one month prior to entry so that we have enough time to process your application. If you are also applying for funding or will require a visa then we strongly recommend you apply as early as possible.

• How to apply

You must submit a research proposal demonstrating your knowledge of your field of research, which will be closely scrutinised as part of the decision-making process. We request that PhD research proposals are no more than four A4 typed pages in Times New Roman, 12pt font. This includes charts and figures but does not include references or a bibliography.

We require PhD applicants in particular to contact potential supervisors before applying to discuss their research proposal so we can ensure there is adequate supervision.

Find out more about the general application process for postgraduate programmes:

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School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences welcomes nine new faculty

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Dean Agustín Rayo and the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences recently welcomed nine new professors to the MIT community. They arrive with diverse backgrounds and vast knowledge in their areas of research.

Sonya Atalay joins the Anthropology Section as a professor. She is a public anthropologist and archaeologist who studies Indigenous science protocols, practices, and research methods carried out with and for Indigenous communities. Atalay is the director and principal investigator of the Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science, a newly established National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center. She has expertise in the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and served two terms on the National NAGPRA Review Committee, first appointed by the Bush administration and then for a second term by the Obama administration. Atalay has produced a series of research-based comics in partnership with Native nations about repatriation of Native American ancestral remains, return of sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony under NAGPRA law. Atalay earned her PhD in anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley (UC Berkeley).

Anna Huang SM ’08 joins the departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and Music and Theater Arts as assistant professor. She will help develop graduate programming focused on music technology. Previously, she spent eight years with Magenta at Google Brain and DeepMind, spearheading efforts in generative modeling, reinforcement learning, and human-computer interaction to support human-AI partnerships in music-making. She is the creator of Music Transformer and Coconet (which powered the Bach Google Doodle). She was a judge and organizer for the AI Song Contest. Anna holds a Canada CIFAR AI Chair at Mila, a BM in music composition, a BS in computer science from the University of Southern California, an MS from the MIT Media Lab, and a PhD from Harvard University.

Elena Kempf joins the History Section as an assistant professor. She is an historian of modern Europe with special interests in international law and modern Germany in its global context. Her current book project is a legal, political, and cultural history of weapons prohibitions in modern international law from the 1860s to the present. Before joining MIT, Kempf was a postdoc at the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law at UC Berkeley and a lecturer at the Department of History at Stanford University. Elena earned her PhD in history from UC Berkeley.

Matthias Michel joins the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy as an assistant professor. Matthias completed his PhD in philosophy in 2019 at Sorbonne Université. Before coming to MIT, he was a Bersoff Faculty Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at New York University. His research is at the intersection between philosophy and cognitive science, and focuses on philosophical issues related to the scientific study of consciousness. His current work addresses questions such as how to distinguish entities with minds from those without, which animals are sentient, and which mental functions can be performed unconsciously.

Jacob Moscona PhD ’21 is a new assistant professor in the Department of Economics. His research explores broad questions in economic development, with a focus on the role of innovation, the environment, and political economy. One stream of his research investigates the forces that drive the rate and direction of technological progress, as well as how new technologies shape global productivity differences and adaptation to major threats like climate change. Another stream of his research studies the political economy of economic development, with a focus on how variation in social organization and institutions affects patterns of conflict and cooperation. Prior to joining MIT, he was a Prize Fellow in Economics, History, and Politics at Harvard University. He received his BA from Harvard in 2016 and PhD from MIT in 2021. Outside of MIT, Jacob enjoys playing and performing music.

Sendhil Mullainathan joins the departments of EECS and Economics as the Peter de Florez Professor. His research uses machine learning to understand complex problems in human behavior, social policy, and medicine. Previously, Mullainathan spent five years at MIT before joining the faculty at Harvard in 2004, and then the University of Chicago in 2018. He received his BA in computer science, mathematics, and economics from Cornell University and his PhD from Harvard.

Elise Newman PhD ’21 is a new assistant professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. Her forthcoming monograph, “When arguments merge,” studies the ingredients that languages use to construct verb phrases, and examines how those ingredients interact with other linguistic processes such as question formation. By studying these interactions, she forms a hypothesis about how different languages’ verb phrases can be distinct from each other, and what they must have in common, providing insight into this aspect of the human language faculty. In addition to the structural properties of language, Newman also has expertise in semantics (the study of meaning) and first language acquisition. She returns to MIT after a postdoc at the University of Edinburgh, after completing her PhD in linguistics at MIT in 2021.

Oliver Rollins joins the Program in Science, Technology, and Society as an assistant professor. He is a qualitative sociologist who explores the sociological dimensions of neuroscientific knowledge and technologies. His work primarily illustrates the way race, racialized discourses, and systemic practices of social difference impact and are shaped by the development and use of neuroscience. His book, “Conviction: The Making and Unmaking of The Violent Brain” (Stanford University Press, 2021), traces the evolution of neuroimaging research on antisocial behavior, stressing the limits of this controversial brain model when dealing with aspects of social inequality. Rollins’s second book project will grapple with the legacies of scientific racism in and through the mind and brain sciences, elucidating how the haunting presence of race endures through modern neuroscientific theories, data, and technologies. Rollins recently received an NSF CAREER Award to investigate the intersections between social justice and science. Through this project, he aims to examine the sociopolitical vulnerabilities, policy possibilities, and anti-racist promises for contemporary (neuro)science.

Ishani Saraf joins the Program in Science, Technology, and Society as an assistant professor. She is a sociocultural anthropologist. Her research studies the transformation and trade of discarded machines in translocal spaces in India and the Indian Ocean, where she focuses on questions of postcolonial capitalism, urban belonging, material practices, situated bodies of knowledge, and environmental governance. She received her PhD from the University of California at Davis, and prior to joining MIT, she was a postdoc and lecturer at the University of Virginia.

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• Transforming Political Subjectivities in Somaliland
• Translingual History and Politics of 'Minzu' (Nationality) and ‘Zuqun’ (Ethnicity) in China’
• Where Rising Powers Meet: China and Russia at their North Asian Border
• Yastan’ (Ethnicity) and National Unity in Mongolia
• The Ethics of Behavioural Economics
• Environment, Infrastructure, and Care overview
• Refiguring Conservation in/for ‘the Anthropocene’: the Global Lives of the Orangutan (GLO)
• Resource frontiers: managing water on a trans-border Asian river
• Shared Risk - ACED
• Becoming Shamans to be Healed
• Blowing in the Wind: Renewable energy and Ethnic Minorities in Chinese Inner Mongolia
• Climate Histories Research Group: Communicating Cultural Knowledge of Environmental Change
• Communicating cultural knowledge of environmental change in collaboration with schools, local communities and NGOs
• CRIC - Cultural Heritage and the Reconstruction of Identitites after Conflict 2008-2012
• Environmental Knowledge in Alaska and Mexico
• Gambling across the Pacific: the Fluttering Tide
• Gathering and communicating climate knowledge, with particular reference to generating impact at local and national levels
• Himalayan connections: melting glaciers, sacred landscapes and mobile technologies in a Changing Climate
• HimalConnect: Network and Knowledge-Sharing Workshops in Nepal and Bhutan
• Mongolia's Natural Resource Strategy
• Mongolian Cosmopolitical Heritage: Tracing Divergent Healing Practices Across the Mongolian-Chinese Border
• Pathways Project
• Plugstreet Project
• Solar powered praying wheels
• The Roots of Success
• Tradition and Modernity in Tibet and the Himalayas
• Materiality, Knowledge, and Media overview
• The Work of Art in Contemporary Japan: Inner and outer worlds of creativity
• Activating Anthropology’s Archive
• Imaging Minority Culture: Photography, Digital Sharing, and Cultural Survival in Northeast China
• Kalmyk Cultural Heritage Documentation at MIASU
• Relations between Korowai of Indonesian Papua and International Tourists or TV Crews
• TiBET— Tibetan Book Evolution and Technology
• Transforming Technologies and Buddhist Book Culture: the Introduction of Printing and Digital Text Reproduction in Buddhist Societies
• Morality, Subjectivity, and Emotion overview
• Threshold Media: disclosure, disavowal, and the performance of belief in Pakistan
• Situating Free Speech: European Parrhesia in Comparative perspective
• Study of the International Venture Capital (VC) Industry
• The Ethics of Care: Intellectual Disability in the UK
• The Social Life of Achievement and Competitiveness in Vietnam and Indonesia
• Vietnamese Intellectuals and their Families
• “After Us, Who Will Care for Them?”: Intellectual Disability in South India
• Poverty and Obligation
• Religion and its Others in South Asia and the World: Communities, Debates, Freedoms
• Liberal Translations
• Ascriptions of Dependency in the Pacific
• Ethical Life in Humanistic Buddhism
• Gender and Leadership in Lebanon
• God’s Deposits: Charismatic Christian financial eco-system in Ghana
• Human Rights and the Chichewa Radio
• Images and the moral citizen in late-socialist Vietnam.
• Practices and Ethics of Care in Eating Disorder Treatment in Italy
• Economy, Work, and Social Reproduction overview
• Criminal Capital
• Scrap Value
• Citizenship, Trade Unionism and Subjectivity in Buenos Aires
• Prospective Students
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Natasha (Sally) Raudon Thesis Title:  Huddled Masses: Death and Citizenship in New York City

Elizabeth Walsh Thesis Title:   'Like Ice Floes': Iñupiaq Sovereignty and Settler Migration on Alaska's North Slope

Samuel Victor Thesis Title:  The Ethics of Knowing: Epistemic virtue at an ex-literalist church in Nashville

Lucia Rojas Rodriguez Thesis Title:  The Great Shout of the Wolves’ Mouth: Indigeneity, social change and historical narrative in the Ecuadorian Andes

Edward Moon-Little Thesis Title:  In The Shade Of The Kangla: Kingship And Revivalism In Northeast India

Angel Naydenov Thesis Title:  Time, Self, and the Other in a Rural Chinese Township

Lee-Shan Tse Thesis Title:  The Dualities of Home: Hong Kong Citizens in a Mobile World

Shumaila Ahmed Thesis Title:  An Ethics of Coherence: Self, Knowledge, and Religious Authority among Women Islamic Scholars in Leicester, UK

Emmanuelle Roth Thesis Title:  The ‘truth about Ebola’: Insecure epistemologies in post-outbreak Forest Guinea

Julia Modern Thesis Title:  ‘You are all my people’  Building disabled community in Uganda’s microentrepreneur economy 

Victoria Hall Thesis Title: “ No, not Hindu – just local!”: Sharing Selves, Expressions, and Religious Meanings in the Garhwali Himalaya

Thomas Powell Davies Thesis Title:  The three hearths: Custom, church and state as colliding orders of time and space in Asmat, Indonesian Papua

Alice Pearson Thesis title:  The Discipline of Economics:  Performativity and Personhood in Undergraduate Economics Education

Daniel Cardoza Thesis Title:  Becoming Accountable Jehovah's Witnesses and the Responsibilities of Evangelism

Carolyn Dreyer Thesis Title:  Meekly Kneeling Before Wisdom:  Labouring for revelation in an Anglo-Catholic chaplaincy

Heidi Mogstad Thesis Title:  Humanitarian shame and cosmopolitan nationalism:  Norwegian volunteers at home and abroad

Giulia Sciolli Thesis Title:  Tinkering with Food and Family: Striving for Good Care in an Eating Disorder Treatment Centre in Italy 

Liangliang Zhang Thesis Title:  ‘Action through non-action’: Self-transformation and social transformation at the PRC grassroots

Dominik Hoehn Thesis Title: Architecture is co: an ethnography of architectural presentations and representations in Copenhagen

Sophia Hornbacher-Schoenleber Thesis Title: Preaching Marxism? The politics and ethics of leftist Muslim activists in Java

Laura Tradii Thesis Title: Terra Incognita: Living with the war dead in postsocialist rural Brandenburg (Germany)

David Ginsborg Thesis Title:  We don’t know what we’re saying: Irony, community, and resistance politics among the ultras of CS Lebowski football club in Florence, Italy

Mikkel Kenni Bruun Thesis Title:   Scientific persuasions: ethnographic reflections on evidence-based psychological therapy​

Thandeka Cochrane Thesis Title:   Epistemic entanglements in an age of universals: literacy, libraries and children's stories in rural Malawi

Corinna Howland Thesis Title:  Immoral Economy: Negative Ethics and Economic Life in the Southern Peruvian Andes

Nicholas Lackenby Thesis Title:  For many are called, and few are chosen: eternity and peoplehood amongst Orthodox Christians in Serbia

Natalie Morningstar Thesis Title: Critique and Neoliberalism's Critics: Art, Activism, and Uncertainty in Post-Recession Dublin

Victoria Muinde Thesis Title: An Economy of (Dis)Affections: Woman Headed Households and Matrillineal Relations in Kenya South Coast

Priscilla Pereira Vieira Da Costa Garcia​ Thesis Title: Building the kingdom: Pentecostal Christianity and the social life of the ethical-political in a Brazilian megachurch

Hugh F. Williamson Thesis Title: ' Transylvanian Baroque: Liberalism and the Material World in Rural Romania'

Amy Binning Thesis Title: Printing as Practice: Innovation and Imagination in the Making of Tibetan Buddhist Sacred Texts in California

Joe Ellis Thesis Title:  An Exemplary Cosmology: (De)Contextualisations, Moral Horizons and the Structure of Freedom in Mongolia

Anthony Howarth Thesis Title: A Travellers’ sense of Place in the City

Shuai Li Thesis Title: Fragments of the Prosperous Age: Living with Heritage and Treasure in Contemporary China

Rosie Jones-McVey Thesis Title: Reasonable Creatures: British Equestrianism and Epistemological Responsibility in Late Modernity

Patrick O'Hare Thesis Title:  Recovering requeche and classifying clasificadores: An Ethnography of Hygienic Enclosure and Montevideo’s Waste Commons

Christina Woolner Thesis Title:  The Labour of Love Songs: Voice, Intimacy and belonging in Somaliland.

Matteo Benussi Thesis Title: Aspiring Muslims in Russia: Form-of-Life and Political Economy of Virtue in Povolzhye's Halal Movement

Johannes Lenhard Thesis Title: Comme Chez Soi – Home-making among homeless people in Paris

Nurul Mohd Razif Thesis Title: ' Halal' Intimacy: Love, Marriage and Polygamy in contemporary Malaysia

Falk Parra Witte Thesis Title: Living the Law of Origin: The Cosmological, Ontological, and Epistemological Framework of Kogi Ecology

Ed Pulford Thesis Title: On Northeast Asian frontiers of history and friendship

Farhan Samanani Thesis Title: Gathering Kilburn: The everyday production of community in a diverse London neighbourhood

Elizabeth Turk Thesis Title: Healing in "disorganized" Mongolia: orthopraxy, re-enchantment and the "aliveness" of nature

Michael Vine Thesis Title: Shifting Sands: Climate crisis and the ecologies of everyday life in Southern California

James Wintrup Thesis Title: Sanctified Lives: Christian Medical Humanitarianism in Southern Zambia

Jonathan Woolley Thesis Title: Rede of Reeds: Land and Labour in Rural Norfolk

Lys Alcayna Stevens Thesis Title: Habituating Field Scientists: Primatological Research in the Forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo

Tristam Barrett Thesis Title: Political Economy and Social Transformation in Baku, Azerbaijan

Clara Devlieger Thesis Title: “People who need rights”? Disability and the Pursuit of Value in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo

Johanna Goncalves Martin Thesis Title: The path of health and the elusiveness of fertility Partial translations between Yanomami people and doctors in the Venezuelan Amazon fertility Partial translations between Yanomami people and doctors in the Venezuelan Amazon

Anna Grigoryeva Thesis Title: Mobilising Moscow: knowledge politics in the 2012 anti-Putin protests

Dominic Martin  Thesis title:  Zealots of Piety: Old orthodox religious revival in a post-Soviet 'closed' city (1991-2014)

Matthew McGuire Thesis Title:  Outside Jeong? Young Men, Sexuality and Conflicting Selfhood in Seoul  

Patrick McKearney Thesis Title: Enabling Ethics: L’Arche, learning disability, and the possibilities of moral agency

Joseph Philp Thesis Title: I nterested Relations: Kinship, Money and Language in Southern Togo

Yu Qiu Thesis Title: A study of Nigerian-Chinese intimate/business partnerships in South China

Leonie Schiffauer Thesis Title: Economies of Illusion: Multilevel marketing and pyramid schemes in postsocialist Siberia

Felix Stein  Thesis Title:  Work, sleep, repeat - the abstract labour of German management consultants

Hui-Ju Tsai Thesis Title: "Chinese" capitalism: Taiwanese corporations, cross-Strait capital, and identity politics

Max Watson Thesis Title: Consuming Play: Fixed-codes and Social-codes amongst the Players of MOBA Games

Thomas White Thesis Title: Transforming China's Desert: Camels, Pastoralists and the State in the Reconfiguration of Western Inner Mongolia

Rachel Wyatt Thesis Title: The flexible Penan: nomadism and sedentarism within Sarawak  

Ryan Davey Thesis Title: Debts in suspense: Domination and optimism among the white working class in England

Jiarui Li Thesis Title: Jiarui Li: The Inbetweeners: Uyghur MinKaoHan and their private lives in Xinjiang

Ross Porter Thesis Title: ‘Being change’ in Change Square: An ethnography of revolutionary life in Yemen

Lam Minh Chau Thesis Title: Predict the unpredictable: Rural experiences of late-socialist marketization in Northern Vietnam

Jonas Tinius Thesis title: State of the Arts: German theatre and political self-cultivation

Yassmin Ahmed Thesis title: Encountering the Egyptian State in revolutionary times: A rural perspective

Steven Schiffer Thesis title: In community: Environmentalism as a religious revival in a Canadian ecovillage

Eva-Marlene Schäfers Thesis title: Desiring voice: Female subjectivities and affective publics in Turkish Kurdistan

John Fahy Thesis title: Becoming Vaishnava in an ideal Vedic city

Benjamin Belek Thesis title: Becoming autistic: Subjectivity, community and the search for the meaning of autism

2014 – 15                   

Fiona Wright Thesis title: Conflicted subjects: an ethnography of Jewish Israeli left-wing activism in Israel/Palestine.

Nicholas Evans Thesis title: The exemplary system: hierarchy, ethics and responsibility for India's Ahmadi Muslims.

Jan-Jonathan Bock  Thesis title: L'Aquila - the social consequences of disaster and the recovery of everyday life in an Italian urban environment.

Thomas Neumark Thesis title: Caring for relations - an ethnography of unconditional cash transfers in a Nairobi slum.

Sazana Jayadeva Thesis title: Overcoming the English handicap: seeking English in Bangalore, India .

Sertac Sehlikoglu Karakas Thesis title: Becoming an Istanbulite woman: intersections of subjectivity, movement, and desire in the Middle East.

Nikolay Mintchev Thesis title: Subjectivity, ethnicity, and social transformation: a study of Turks and Bulgarians in Socialist and Postsocialist Bulgaria.

Fred Ikanda Thesis title: Kinship, hospitality and humanitarianism: 'locals' and 'refugees' in Northeastern Kenya.

Paolo Heywood Thesis title: Making difference: ethics, activism, and anthropological theory.

2013 - 2014

Miriam Boyles Thesis title: Moving with change and loss: an embodied network analysis of later life in London.

Laura Chinnery Thesis title: Threatened lives and fragile relations: the struggle for a valuable existence in two Salvadoran prisons.

Cheuk Yuet Ho Thesis title: The predicament of housing ownership: an ethnography of property rights in neo-socialist China.

Mantas Kvedarivicius Thesis title: Knots of absence: death, dreams, and disappearances at the limits of law in the counter-terrorism zone of Chechnya.

Grzegorz Muraski Thesis title: The palace complex: The social life of a Stalinist skyscraper in contemporary Warsaw.

Jonathan Taee Thesis title: The patient multiple: An ethnography of health, practice and decision-making in Bhutan.

Lobsang Yongdan Thesis title: Geographical conceptualizations in a nineteenth-century Tibetan text: the creation of and responses to the 'Dzam gling rgyas bshad’ (‘The detailed description of the world’).  

Ross Anthony Thesis title: Repetition and its discontents: space, time and identity in the city of Urumqi

Paula Haas Thesis title: Trusting everyone and no-one: Constructing the ideal barga society in Inner Mongolia

Sergio Jarillo de la Torre Thesis title: Carving the spirits of the wood: An enquiry into Trobriand materialisations

Jessica Johnson Thesis title: Chilungamo? In search of gender justice in Matrilineal Malawi

Jailing Luo Thesis title: Milieux, state, and the urban construction of Beijing an ethnographic inquiry into Chinese modernism

Maria Luisa Nodari Thesis title: Climbing for the nation.  Epics of mountaineering in Tibet

Chloe Nahum Claudel Thesis title: Working together for Yankwa: vitalising cosmogony in Southern Amazonia (Enawene-nawe)

Sukanya Sarbadhikary Thesis title: The place of devotion: Sitting and experiencing divinity in Bengal-Vaishnavism

Baasanjav Terbish Thesis title: State ideology and its context in the Republic of Kalmykia, Russia  

Megha Amrith Title of thesis: Life in Transit: The aspirations of Filipino medical workers in Singapore

Eirini Avramopoulou Title of thesis: The affective language of activism: An ethnography of human rights, gender politics and activist coalitions in Istanbul, Turkey.

Bernard Charlier Title of thesis: Faces of the wolf, faces of the individual: anthropological study of human, non human relationships in West Mongolia

Elzbieta Drazkiewicz-Grodzicka Title of thesis: An emergent donor? The case of the Polish developmental involvement in Africa

Jacqueline Hobbs Title of thesis: When the "Milkbird" comes: Amdo-Tibetan constructions of time in Qinghai and Gansu provinces, the People's Republic of China

Delwar Hussain Title of thesis: Negotiating the margins: Quotidian lives on the Bangladesh/ India border

Vito Laterza Title of thesis: Breathing life: labour relations, epistemology and the body among Swazi timber workers

Felix Ringel Title of thesis: Knowledge in time: An ethnography of hope and the future in Germany's fastest shrinking city

Alice Rogalla Von Bieberstein Title of thesis: Subjectivity in the shadow of catastrophes: A transnational study of citizenship and memorial politics.  

Olivier Allard Title of thesis: Morality and Emotion in the Dynamics of an Amerindian Society, Warao, Orinoco Delta, Venezuela

Franck Bille Title of thesis: Bodies of excess: imagining the Chinese in contemporary Mongolia

Mark Henare Title of thesis: Nau te rourou, naku te rourou (your basket and my basket) : reflections of sameness and difference in Aotearoa-New Zealand and Hawaii

Lars Hojer Title of thesis: Dangerous communications : enmity, suspense and integration in post socialist Northern Mongolia.

Richard Irvine Title of thesis: The individual, other people and God: religious practice in an English Benedictine monastery.

Mireille Mazard Title of thesis: Socialist simulcra : history, ideology and ethno-politics on China's Tibeto-Burman frontier

Irene Peano Title of thesis: Ambiguous bonds: A contextual study of Nigerian sex labour in Italy

Annabel Pinker Title of thesis: "The path is made by walking": Utopianism, cooperative development, and missionary practices in the Ecuadorian Andes

Krisna Uk Title of thesis: Living amidst explosive remnants of war: comparative study of post-conflict Cambodian and Lao peasant communities.

Alice Wilson Title of thesis: Making statehood and unmaking tribes in Western Sahara’s liberation movement

Umut Yildirim Title of thesis: Militant experts : a study of the transformation of the revolutionary self in Diyarbakir, Turkey

Astrid Zimmermann Title of thesis: Enacting the state in Mongolia: An ethnographic study of community, competition and ‘corruption’ in postsocialist provincial state institutions  

Alina Bakunina Thesis title: Post-liberalisation Entrepreneurship in India: Attitudes and practices

Ayse Demircioglu Thesis title: Socio-cultural Construction of Infertility in Turkey: The reasons for Increasing Use of New Reproductive Technologies

Sabine Deiringer Thesis title: Organising Hawaii-US relations: An anthropological approach

Carine Durand Thesis title: Anthropology in a Glass Case: Indigeneity collaboration and artistic practices in museums.

Charlotte Faircloth Thesis title: Mothering as identity work: Long-term breastfeeding, attachment parenting and intensive motherhood

Tod Hartman Thesis title: The economy, labour and the new Romanian migration to Spain

Bernhard Krieger Thesis title: The production of free software: an ethnographic enquiry on a new social practice

Ashley Lebner Thesis title: Christian persons, secular politics, impossible dialogues: the problem of friendship and the landless worker’s movement on the Southern Amazonian frontier

Nayanika Mathur Thesis title: Paper Tiger? The Everyday Life of the State in the Indian Himalaya

Laura Mentore Thesis title: Trust and Alterity: Amerindian Analysis of Social and Environmental Relations in Southern Guayana

Amy Pollard Thesis title: Power in Doubt: Aid, Effectiveness and Harmonisation amongst Donors in Indonesia

Catherine Trundle Thesis title: The Reflexive Gift: the charitable practices of English speaking migrants in Florence, Italy

Adrian Zenz Thesis title: Tibetanness Under Threat? Sinicisation, Career and Market Reforms in Qinghai, P.R. China  

Srijana Das Thesis title: A Market of Emotions: Bombay Cinema, Punjabi Culture and the Politics of Popular Entertainment.

Nicholas Long Thesis title: Urban, Social and Personal Transformations in Tanjung Pinang, Kepulauan Riau, Indonesia.

Amy Rowe Thesis title: Lebanese Lives in New England: American Narratives of Assimilation & Ethno-Racial Classification.

Ruth Toulson Thesis title: Pockets in Shrouds: Death and Desire in Contemporary Singapore.

Department of Social Anthropology Free School Lane Cambridge CB2 3RF Tel: 01223 334 599

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MRes in Social Anthropology

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Course closed:

Social Anthropology is no longer accepting new applications.

This ESRC recognised course provides intensive research training in social anthropology, social science research methods more generally, and the opportunity to complete a research dissertation under academic guidance.  It is ordinarily expected that MRes students will progress directly to registration for the PhD course and fieldwork, subject to excellent results in their MRes. However, the MRes can also serve as a free-standing project if a student wishes to pursue advanced study and to acquire additional research skills without proceeding to the PhD programme.

It is expected that applicants for the Social Anthropology MRes will have a first-class Honours degree or strong High Pass in a Master's degree in Social Anthropology.

The MRes in Social Anthropology is intended for students who already have full training at Undergraduate and/or Master's level in the methods and perspectives of Social/Cultural Anthropology.

The course is a one-year period of rigorous training in research issues and methods that leads to the production of an independently-researched 15,000 word dissertation and a substantial fieldwork proposal.  The taught portion of the MRes programme is the same as the nine-month PhD pre-fieldwork training programme: students take the same courses in ethnographic methods and social theory, and receive the same close interaction with their supervisor, a senior member of department staff. There is also training in quantitative social science methods.

The course offers critical discussion of students' research projects and provides training in:

• how fieldwork contributes to social scientific knowledge;
• how to isolate the theoretical questions that inform particular pieces of ethnography; and
• how to identify the kinds of empirical evidence necessary to address those questions.

Students work with a main Supervisor and a Faculty Advisor, who acts as a source of supplementary advice. Students will normally continue with this Supervisor if they continue to their PhD.

Additional information for those continuing to the PhD

Students continuing to the PhD will then normally undertake 12–18 months of ethnographic fieldwork subject to the successful completion of a 7,000–word fieldwork proposal and fieldwork clearance interview with the PhD committee.  Students would usually leave for field research at the start of their first term of the PhD (October/November).

On return to Cambridge, students devote the remainder of their research time to writing their PhD thesis in close consultation with their Supervisor.

Upon return from the field, writing-up students are also expected to attend the following seminars during term-time:

• The PhD Writing-Up Seminar
• The Senior Research Seminar
• Anthropology Beyond the Academy
• Anthropological Lives

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course students should have:

developed a deeper general knowledge of the comparative, theoretical and epistemological issues underlying contemporary social anthropological research and, where relevant to proposed doctoral research, developed a deeper knowledge of a specific geographical and/or topical area of anthropology and of the critical debates within it;

developed a knowledge of a range of current methods, methodologies and research findings and a conceptual understanding that enables their proper deployment and evaluation; and

where relevant, advanced own plans for field research and undertaken field preparation with reference to both the overall aims of the course and the specific social, ethical and other practical matters relating to their chosen field.

Continuation from the MRes to the PhD is normally subject to achieving a High Pass (a mark of at least 70) in the MRes. Students wishing to continue to the PhD must submit a formal application for continuation during their MRes year., which must be accepted by the PhD Committee.

The Postgraduate Virtual Open Day usually takes place at the end of October. It’s a great opportunity to ask questions to admissions staff and academics, explore the Colleges virtually, and to find out more about courses, the application process and funding opportunities. Visit the  Postgraduate Open Day  page for more details.

See further the  Postgraduate Admissions Events  pages for other events relating to Postgraduate study, including study fairs, visits and international events.

Key Information

11 months full-time, study mode : research, master of research, department of social anthropology, course - related enquiries, application - related enquiries, course on department website, dates and deadlines:, michaelmas 2024 (closed).

Some courses can close early. See the Deadlines page for guidance on when to apply.

Funding Deadlines

These deadlines apply to applications for courses starting in Michaelmas 2024, Lent 2025 and Easter 2025.

Similar Courses

• Social Anthropology PhD
• Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics PhD
• Mathematics (Applied Mathematics) MASt
• Mathematics (Mathematical Statistics) MASt
• Mathematics (Pure Mathematics) MASt

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© 2024 University of Cambridge

• Contact the University
• Accessibility
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