Anthropological Research MA

Year of entry: 2025

Course length: 12 months Full-Time | 24 Months Part-time

About the course

The MA Anthropological Research course is designed to prepare you to carry out doctoral level research in social anthropology. It provides training in a wide range of research methods and teaches you how to develop a substantive research project in a theoretically and methodologically informed way.

Although primarily intended as preliminary to doctoral research, the course is also available as a stand-alone taught master's degree to improve your social research skills and gain an in-depth understanding of ethnographic methods and approaches. You will work closely with an expert supervisor in social anthropology, with further guidance from a second supervisor.

The course is also excellent for acquiring skills in social research methods, especially the ethnographic methods that are fast becoming popular in the business, voluntary and educational sectors as a way of finding out how people engage with their everyday worlds. In keeping with the main purpose of the MA in Anthropological Research as a research-training masters, many graduates successfully proceed to PhD studies. It is a recognised 1+3 entry route for The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) PhD training.

See the full course profile on our website >

Study at a university ranked top 10 in the UK and top 30 in the world for Anthropology

(QS rankings by subject 2023)

Join one of the largest Social Anthropology departments in the UK

We're one of the top 10 departments in the country for Social Anthropology research

(REF 2021)

Compulsory Units

Independent Theoretical & Ethnographic Analysis I
Issues in Ethnographic Research I
Issues in Ethnographic Research II
PG Research Seminar
Qualitative Research Methods
Introduction to Quantitative Methods

Optional Units

Anthropology of Development and Humanitarianism
Anthropology of Displacement and Migration: Why and how do people move?
Anthropology of Human Learning: Childhood and Education
Ethnographies and Adventures in Manchester
Anthropology of Health and Wellbeing
Independent Theoretical Ethnographic Analysis II
Food and Eating: The Cultural Body
Anthropology of Vision, Senses and Memory
MA Ethnography Reading Seminar
Key Approaches in Social Anthropology

These are examples of units offered in 2023/24 and are subject to change.

See the full list of units and find out more on the full course profile >

Where will your degree take you?

In keeping with the main purpose of the MA in Anthropological Research as a research-training masters, many graduates successfully proceed to PhD studies.

Our graduates are highly sought after and are able to use their skills and knowledge in a wide range of different areas, such as the creative arts, journalism and the media, education, business management and administration, and government work.

This degree also allows you to develop skills applicable to jobs in social research, management, third sector services, social work, and teaching, as well as to progress to PhD level study, research and academia.

Professor Karen Sykes

Professor of Social Anthropology and Director of Postgraduate Research

As Professor of Social Anthropology, Karen Sykes’s research in Papua New Guinea and amongst Papua New Guineans living in Australia, shows repeatedly that ethnographic understanding of peoples’ lives as they are lived continues to challenge anthropologists to rethink every theoretical concept of social science. She believes that theoretical innovation is most constrained by mistaking the scholarly accomplishments of the anthropologist for originality in research, whereas the horizon of anthropological theory unfolds more fully in research that recognises the very creativity inherent in the lives of the people informing the study. As Director of Postgraduate Research in Social Anthropology, she supports new research that marks the inventiveness of humans in making a shared life in a diverse world.