We welcome students with the appropriate background for research. You usually register initially for an MPhil, which subject to satisfactory progress may be upgraded to PhD. You take part in coursework, especially methods modules, as part of your training in the first year. We expect you to complete your doctoral thesis before the end of the fourth year. You may also register initially for an MA or MSc by Research, and these degrees may also be upgraded.
We can offer supervision in both socio-cultural and biological anthropology. We are currently strong in environmental anthropology and ethnobiology, ethnicity and nationalism, kinship, methodology, and the anthropology of language use..
In general, you work closely with one supervisor throughout your research, although your work will be overseen by a committee of three members of staff. If you want to do research in the area of Applied Computing in Social Anthropology you have two supervisors: one in the Computing Laboratory as well as an anthropologist.
Anthropology has maintained close links with other departments in the Faculties of Humanities and Science, Technology and Medical Studies, undertaking collaborative work. Our regional expertise focusses on Europe (especially the British Isles, Mediterranean and Eastern Europe), South-East Asia (especially Indonesia and Malaysia), New Guinea, West Africa, South Asia, North and South America, and Polynesia.
It is essential that prospective research students identify and contact a potential supervisor (by email) prior to making a formal application. We are unable to process any application without such prior contact.
Current Research Students
A full listing of current research students can be found here. Current student projects include:
Changing economy and identity among Macedonia's grape growers and wine producers in the Tikves region
La Lucha de Hoy: Cuban Housing Landscapes in a Changing Socialist Economy
Delusion or Devolution? Towards an Anthropological Model for Kanak Psychiatry
'Bushcraft' and 'indigenous knowledge': transformations of a concept in the modern world
Social networks and knowledge flows in climate change water scarcity management.
The Silences of Being: Wahdat al-wajud, Presence and the Quotidian
Reifications of Cyberspace in Personal Space
The menstrual cycle and female-to-female interactions: Explored through olfactory, visual and verbal/auditory communication
Modernisation and indigenous health in South India
The Material in the Immaterial: The Powell-Cotton Angolan Uukwanyama film archive and the evocation of material memory
New Areas of Enquiry for an Anthropology of Isolated Peoples in Amazonia
Diet, resource management and agro-biodiversity of a farming community in Western Kenya
Recent Research
A full listing of completed research theses can be found here.
Recently submitted theses include:
2009
Ethnomedicine and the dynamics of knowledge transmission and plant conservation in Atiu, Cook Islands Sofia Vougioukalou
2008
'There has been enough crying and now I want to dance!': Belonging, cosmopolitanism and resistance in London's Kurdish diasporic spaces Sarah Keeler
The cultural significance of thuya (Tetraclinus articulata): an ethnographic study of the thuya woodworking craft and its implications for sustainable management in southern Morocco Rachel Kaleta
The Forgotten Bones of Medieval Woodchurch: an Osteological and Palaeopathological Assessment Helen Bluck
2007
The Conditions for Imagining and Enacting Identity: The Discursive Production of ‘Afghan Identity’ in London Angela Schlenkhoff
Making Houses, Keeping Kitchens: Exchange, Gender and Generation in an Out-of-Town Settlement, Zimbabwe Mary Adams
From 'Tourkopolis' to 'Metropolis': The Creation of Public Space in Early 20th Century Iraklio, Crete Aristotelis Anagnostopoulos
Supervision
Supervision can be offered in the following fields:
Professor Roy Ellen: Ethnobiology, environmental anthropology; classification and cognitive anthropology, anthropological theory; the human ecology of rainforest populations, deforestation, inter-island trade; Indonesia, South-east Asia.
Professor Michael Fischer:
Social, political, demographic and epidemiological issues relating to Pakistan, especially
Punjab and Swat.
Social, cultural, political and economic issues pertaining to Western Polynesia,
especially the Cook Islands.
Knowledge and its organisation in the Cook Islands and Pakistan.
Cultural performance and the creation of tradition; traditional knowledge production,
change and organisation; kinship and social organisation; population structure; tourism.
Ethnographic media; Anthropology and computing; mathematical anthropology; computer modelling;
Dr. Sarah Johns
Human palaeoarchaeology, reproductive behaviour and the evolutionary psychology of human reproductive decision making.
Professor Roger Just The anthropology of Greece; kinship, family and migration; ethnicity and nationalism; maritime anthropology.
Dr. Stephen Lycett Palaeoanthropology; cultural evolution and transmission; the Palaeolithic; physical anthropology.
Dr. Gary Martin: Ethnobotany; Mexico; Morocco; Sabah. Local knowledge and conservation. Biocultural diversity studies.
Dr. Nicholas Newton-Fisher Primate behaviour and ecology; evolution of social systems, complex social behaviour and the evolution of primate cognition. Methods of data analysis; application of statistical models to understanding behaviour and social structure. Africa.
Dr. Peter Parkes:
Agro-pastoral mountain subsistence; intercultural communication in development; indigenous
minorities; visual anthropology and media ethnography; oral tradition, verbal arts
and performance; Pakistan and Central Asia.
Dr. Mike Poltorak
Tonga, Oceania, New Zealand, Brighton and Hove, Rajasthan, India, mental illness, medical anthropology, transnationalism, ethnopsychiatry, vaccination, applied medical anthropology, cultural politics, indigenous epistemologies and modernities
Dr. Raj Puri:
Ethnobiology, environmental anthropology, human dimensions of global change, conservation
and development; human ecology of tropical forest peoples; SE Asia, Indonesia, Borneo,
PNG, Australia, Hawaii
Dr. Anna Waldstein:
Medical anthropology; ethnobotany. Mexico, North America
Professor David Zeitlyn:
Cameroon/Nigeria - Mambila; ritual and religion; socio-linguistics and pragmatics; kinship; the social use of computers; technology and library skills
Fees
Fees for postgraduate programmes are reviewed annually by the University. The current fee tariff is available on request.
The Department is recognised by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for the receipt of research studentships (both ESRC and joint NERC/ESRC), and has 'Mode A' recognition which enables us to offer a comprehensive programme of research training (MPhil/PhD) for both full-time and part-time students. We have been allocated ESRC quota places for 1+3 and +3 registration. We also have some Departmental Studentships. Please contact the department for further details.
The first step is to identify and contact a potential supervisor.
Refer to the staff profiles for details of individual research interests.
When a member of staff has agreed to supervise your project, then complete an application form. Applications can be made online, or if you prefer, you can request a paper application form from the Recruitment, Information and Guidance Unit. For further information about the application procedure see
