Social Anthropology
Our research-led teaching is combined with training in critical research skills and personalised support from specialist experts.
Our large, dynamic department covers a range of exciting and cutting-edge specialisms which will provide you with insight into the diversity of social and cultural experience, and encourage you to question assumptions and rethink your world view.
Our degrees are designed to enhance your career in a wide range of areas with a specialist understanding of social life in Western and non-Western societies, giving you a sought after advantage when it comes to working in today’s complex and sometimes divisive globalised society.
Top ten
Study at a university ranked top 10 in the UK and top 30 in the world for Anthropology
(QS Rankings 2024)
Community
Join one of the largest Social Anthropology departments in the UK
Outstanding research
We're one of the top 10 departments in the country for Social Anthropology research
(Research Excellence Framework 2021)
World-leading
For more than 30 years, our Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology has been widely recognised as the world's leading centre for Visual Anthropology
Graduate Destinations
Our degrees allow you to develop a variety of highly transferrable skills, including analytical, research, problem solving and communication skills, which are in high demand for a wide variety of different roles.
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. These degrees also allow 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.
Top job sectors*
*Information based on graduate data across all postgraduate Social Anthropology programmes, 2017-2021.
Media / Entertainment
Further / Higher Education
Education (other)
Third sector
Scientific Services / R&D
Local / National Govt.
Example job titles
- Director / Filmmaker / Producer
- Policy Officer
- Researcher
- Project Manager
- Program Officer
- Lecturer
Example employers
- Oxfam
- Teach First
- Amos Pictures
- Bath Film Festival
- York University
- The University of Manchester
Meet the Academics
We're recognised throughout the world for our high-quality teaching and research, and, because all of our research-active academics also teach, you'll have access to innovative research during your degree.
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.
Dr Angela Torresan
Lecturer in Visual Anthropology
Angela is a diasporic Brazilian visual anthropologist, born in Rio de Janeiro and living in the UK. She has been teaching Visual Anthropology at The University of Manchester Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology since 2007. Having worked with indigenous peoples in Brazil, Brazilian immigrants in London and Lisbon, and slum gentrification, her current research interest focusses on processes of securitization and police violence in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Her main ethnographic and theoretical interest lies on processes of emergence, maintenance, and revitalization of identities in situations of physical and cognitive movement, and cultural change. She is also interested in the use of film in ethnographic research, as a catalyst of social relationships and an instrument for the development of anthropological knowledge.
Faculty of Humanities
The University of Manchester