Section: Prospective Students
Social Anthropology is the comparative study of human conduct and thought in their social contexts. Societies around the world vary enormously in their social, cultural and political forms, while their individual members display a huge diversity of ideas and behaviour. The study of these variations, and the common humanity which underlies them and renders them intelligible to outsiders, lies at the heart of social anthropology. While the subject matter overlaps to some extent with that of sociology, human geography and development studies, social anthropology is also closely linked to history and philosophy.
Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh is well known for its distinctive undergraduate programme, which is based on the Scottish four-year Honours MA. Within this structure the honours specialisation is spread over the final two years, which allows up to four months of the third (Junior Honours) year to be spent on your own project, involving a combination of library and field research. Students develop their projects in consultation with their supervisors, and work in a great diversity of locations. The results of this research are written up during the fourth (Senior Honours) year into a 15,000-word Dissertation.
All students take a first two years combining courses from a mix of subjects. They then have the choice of a further two years of specialization for an Honours degree, or a single further year for the BA:
MA (Honours) Social Anthropology: If you do this degree, you spend the whole of your third and fourth years doing courses and field research in Social Anthropology. At present, about 30 or 40 students each year take Social Anthropology as their Honours subject. Full details of the curriculum appear on the Social Anthropology webpage: http://www.san.ed.ac.uk/undergraduate/index.htm.
MA Joint Honours in Social Anthropology and either Archaeology, Geography, Linguistics, Politics, Social History, Social Policy, Sociology, Arabic or Persian: In the joint degrees, you study both main subjects during the first two years, together with a third optional subject each year. In the honours years your time is fairly evenly divided between the two subjects, though you can sometimes choose to emphasise one subject slightly more than the other.
MA (Honours) Social Anthropology with South Asian Studies or Development: In the "thematic" degrees involving Development and South Asian Studies, you take about two-thirds of the Single Honours Social Anthropology curriculum, as well as a selection of Honours courses from other departments, relating to your chosen theme.
BA Social Sciences (with Social Anthropology as the main subject): In the final year of this three-year degree, you take two courses, including Social Anthropology 3. Altogether you must take at least five courses in Social Science subjects, including your treble in Social Anthropology. You must also do a double course in some other subject.
Anthropology is a subject which has the capacity to change the way you look at the world. In that respect, wherever you go after your degree with us, and whatever you do, you will take with you a new perspective on the world. In the words of a recent assessment of the impact of social anthropology in Britain, “If social workers, administrators, health care professionals and others bring to their work . . an anthropological set of predispositions, their practice is necessarily different. Even at the undergraduate level, Social Anthropology has many of the qualities of a vocation, a range of ways of engaging the world that continue to infuse practice, experience, and imagination.” (International Benchmarking Review of UK Social Anthropology, ESRC 2006)
Our undergraduates pursue successful careers in fields as diverse as journalism, film, and health care, as well as more obviously anthropological areas like social development. A growing number continue with postgraduate study in anthropology, and follow full-time careers as anthropological researchers, sometimes based in universities, but increasingly working for public and private agencies - from the NHS to high-tech corporations like Intel.
All applications for undergraduate admission are handled by the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Information on Undergraduate Admissions procedures can be found in the undergraduate Prospectus. Queries about undergraduate applications should be sent to the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, by email at HSSUG@ed.ac.uk or by phone on +44(0)131 650 3565. If you would like to know more about the course itself, email socanth.enquiries@ed.ac.uk
This page was published on 7 January 2008