This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
Throughout the terms preceding the initiation of the dissertation module students will be encouraged by their supervisor and the instructors of other modules they take to develop ideas for their dissertation research project. They will also be taught appropriate research methods. A preliminary abstract of the project is due by the end of the first term. Students will then develop this into a research proposal, which is submitted as the fourth essay. This will be edited and presented to the school for feedback during the Student Research Day and then submitted for a final grade at the end of the second term. Students who are then passed on to the dissertation module by the examiners meeting will, on this basis, complete a written plan for their research project with advice from their tutor. This will be assessed by the tutor and by one other member of the post-graduate anthropology teaching staff, and when this is approved the student and his or her tutor will intensively discuss methods of data collection, theoretical models for the analysis of this material, and the use and integration of research methods into both its preparation and its final presentation. The student will then independently work on the thesis over the summer until mid-September when it will be submitted. Throughout this time the student will be able to gain supervision through electronic mail, and will have the opportunity to attend various workshop sessions on data analysis and writing.
Total contact hours: 12 (2 workshops, 8 hrs supervision)
Private study hours: 588
Total study hours: 600
MA/MSc in Environmental Anthropology
Dissertation (15,000 words) (100%).
Reassessment methods: 100% project.
Reading list (Indicative list, current at time of publication. Reading lists will be published annually)
There is no specific required reading for this module, apart from readings included in the research methods module. All students will be required to complete their own project -specific literature searches and read relevant literature for their research project. They will provide an account of this in the literature review section of the dissertation.
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
The intended subject specific learning outcomes. On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
8.1 conduct research applied to environmental anthropology
8.2 organise and express cogently a body of research.
8.3 set up a testable hypothesis
8.4 design a research project to test the hypothesis
8.5 select an appropriate methodology, involving either qualitative or quantitative approaches, or a combination of the two
8.6 negotiate access to the field of study, arrange the research and carry out the study
8.7 conduct data analysis using appropriate methods
8.8 plan, format and write a long research paper with an extended argument
The intended generic learning outcomes. On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
9.1 articulate and assess a number of anthropological and cognate approaches to issues in environmental anthropology
9.2 understand the study of environmental anthropology in relation to how the subject has developed
9.3 evaluate various theories of how anthropological data are organized and explained
9.4 think critically in anthropological terms about the relationship between environment and other aspects of culture and society
9.5 present his/her ideas systematically and cogently in writing
9.6 summarise complex material succinctly
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