The Department of Social Anthropology at Cambridge is a leading centre of the subject in Britain. Many of the UK's best known anthropologists were educated here. The Department focuses on innovative frontline research.

We maintain a strong tradition of broad-based undergraduate education. The graduate body is exceptionally large and varied. Cambridge PhDs have gone on to teach anthropology at universities across the world, and to distinguished careers in a wide range of professions from the media to international development.

To undergraduates, the Department offers anthropology - the study of humankind - in the widest sense. In the Undergraduate degree programme, the first year combines social anthropology with archaeology and biological anthropology, with an option in sociology. The second and third years offer foundational teaching in social and cultural anthropology, with a range of research-led optional courses and the opportunity to write a field-based dissertation.

At graduate level, we offer a Master's degree programme in general social anthropology with options in development and museum studies; and a Postgraduate research programme (MPhil SAR/PhD) leading to the PhD. Post-doctoral graduates can continue their research by applying for research fellowships in Cambridge colleges (see Post-doctoral research).

The Department has a cosmopolitan body of teaching staff, each one at the forefront of their field. Their research ranges across the world (Britain, India, Vietnam, Russia, Mongolia, Melanesia, West and East Africa, Indonesia, North America, and Latin America) and focuses on diverse research topics. Themes of current research in the Department include:

    * new forms of kinship and family reproduction;

    * bioethics;

    * the social implications of technology (broadband, nanotechnology, etc);

    * shamanism and medicinal plants;

    * new religious movements;

    * the political and economic transformations of post-socialist societies;

    * new legal forms and institutions;

    * cultural creativity;

    * artefact-based theory.

The Department obtained excellent ratings in the last two Research Assessment Exercises and its teaching is rated Excellent by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).

In addition to the research student body, it has a strong cohort of post-doctoral fellows. The graduate students and post-doctorates of the Department form an international, varied and friendly group with a strong enthusiasm for the subject. They have formed their own anthropology society, CUSAS. See a list of Recent PhD topics.