university of edinburgh phd social anthropology

• Schools & departments

Social Anthropology MSc

Awards: MSc

Study modes: Full-time, Part-time

Funding opportunities

Programme website: Social Anthropology

Discovery Day

Join us online on 18th April to learn more about postgraduate study at Edinburgh

View sessions and register

Programme description

This programme offers an intensive introduction to contemporary social anthropology.

We provide a programme of study that will enable you to consider your own cultural and social context, comparing this to other cultures.

You will work within a rich and active research culture, exploring the distinctive nature of social anthropology and its contribution to a critical and informed understanding of the contemporary world. A world reflected in the diversity of our research and teaching interests.

Courses range from those offering an overview of anthropological theory to those examining specific issues such as:

• development

Who this programme is for

The programme is primarily intended for graduates with little or no previous training in anthropology. You may be contemplating future doctoral research in the subject. Or you might want to acquire anthropological expertise to supplement an existing range of professional skills. A number of courses share teaching with honours students from our undergraduate programme.

Whatever your aim, this MSc offers an intensive introduction to social anthropology.

Programme structure

The MSc in Social Anthropology is offered as a one-year full-time or two-year part-time programme.

The programme will be delivered through:

• guided independent study

The programme consists of 180 credits, comprised of:

• 2 x 20-credit required core courses
• 4 x 20-credit optional courses
• a 60-credit dissertation course

You will complete six courses over two semesters from September to April. Two of these will be compulsory core courses which provide an introduction to anthropological theory and ethnography.

Dissertation

From May to August you will complete a library-based dissertation. The dissertation gives you the chance to get to grips with a topic of your own choosing. You will be supervised by an appropriate member of academic staff.

Find out more about compulsory and optional courses

We link to the latest information available. Please note that this may be for a previous academic year and should be considered indicative.

Learning outcomes

You will gain an advanced understanding of the distinctive nature of social anthropology and its contribution to a critical and informed understanding of the contemporary world.

You will also develop an advanced understanding of theoretical and methodological debates within social anthropology.

Career opportunities

Past students of this programme have gone on to doctoral research in anthropology, while others have been very successful in securing places both in the UK and overseas in a wide variety of careers, from journalism to working in non-governmental organisations.

You will also develop a range of highly transferable skills, such as communication, independent research, and project management, which can be applied to roles in any field.

Entry requirements

These entry requirements are for the 2024/25 academic year and requirements for future academic years may differ. Entry requirements for the 2025/26 academic year will be published on 1 Oct 2024.

A UK 2:1 honours degree or its international equivalent.

Students from China

This degree is Band C.

• Postgraduate entry requirements for students from China

International qualifications

Check whether your international qualifications meet our general entry requirements:

• Entry requirements by country
• English language requirements

Regardless of your nationality or country of residence, you must demonstrate a level of English language competency at a level that will enable you to succeed in your studies.

English language tests

We accept the following English language qualifications at the grades specified:

• IELTS Academic: total 7.0 with at least 6.0 in each component. We do not accept IELTS One Skill Retake to meet our English language requirements.
• TOEFL-iBT (including Home Edition): total 100 with at least 20 in each component. We do not accept TOEFL MyBest Score to meet our English language requirements.
• C1 Advanced ( CAE ) / C2 Proficiency ( CPE ): total 185 with at least 169 in each component.
• Trinity ISE : ISE III with passes in all four components.
• PTE Academic: total 70 with at least 59 in each component.

Your English language qualification must be no more than three and a half years old from the start date of the programme you are applying to study, unless you are using IELTS , TOEFL, Trinity ISE or PTE , in which case it must be no more than two years old.

Degrees taught and assessed in English

We also accept an undergraduate or postgraduate degree that has been taught and assessed in English in a majority English speaking country, as defined by UK Visas and Immigration:

• UKVI list of majority English speaking countries

We also accept a degree that has been taught and assessed in English from a university on our list of approved universities in non-majority English speaking countries (non-MESC).

• Approved universities in non-MESC

If you are not a national of a majority English speaking country, then your degree must be no more than five years old* at the beginning of your programme of study. (*Revised 05 March 2024 to extend degree validity to five years.)

Find out more about our language requirements:

Fees and costs

Tuition fees, scholarships and funding, uk government postgraduate loans.

If you live in the UK, you may be able to apply for a postgraduate loan from one of the UK’s governments.

The type and amount of financial support you are eligible for will depend on:

• your programme
• the duration of your studies
• your tuition fee status

Programmes studied on a part-time intermittent basis are not eligible.

• UK government and other external funding

Other funding opportunities

Search for scholarships and funding opportunities:

• Search for funding

Further information

• Postgraduate Admissions Team
• Phone: +44 (0)131 650 4086
• Contact: [email protected]
• Programme Director, Dr Casey High
• Contact: [email protected]
• Graduate School of Social & Political Science
• Chrystal Macmillan Building
• 15A George Square
• Central Campus
• Programme: Social Anthropology
• School: Social & Political Science
• College: Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

Select your programme and preferred start date to begin your application.

MSc Social Anthropology - 1 Year (Full-time)

Msc social anthropology - 2 years (part-time), application deadlines.

If you are also applying for funding or will require a visa then we strongly recommend you apply as early as possible.

• How to apply

References are not usually required for applications to this programme.

Find out more about the general application process for postgraduate programmes:

Social Anthropology PhD The University of Edinburgh

• On campus - h
• Sep 1, 2023 Part-time - 6 years
• Sep 1, 2023 Full-time - 3 years

Key Course Facts

• Admission advice for international students

Course Description

Our Social Anthropology group forms an international centre of excellence for postgraduate training, recognised as one of the premier research departments in the UK.

Edinburgh’s Social Anthropology department is among the largest in the UK, and our research interests are correspondingly diverse.

Our research is global in scope and includes core themes in:

health and wellbeing

religion and society

migration and refugee studies

science and technology

the anthropology of kinship

peace and conflict studies

anthropology and the arts

media anthropology

cultural heritage

international development

human-animal relations

the anthropology of design

Our work generally combines a traditional anthropological emphasis on ethnographic fieldwork with a focus on contemporary issues.

We welcome interdisciplinary research and are home to the Edinburgh Centre for Medical Anthropology (EdCMA), and numerous collaborations with the Edinburgh College of Art, including the Atelier Network.

We also work closely with the Centre for African Studies (CAS), particularly with research on international development.

Entry Requirements / Admissions

Average student cost of living in the uk.

London costs approx 34% more than average, mainly due to rent being 67% higher than average of other cities. For students staying in student halls, costs of water, gas, electricity, wifi are generally included in the rental. Students in smaller cities where accommodation is in walking/biking distance transport costs tend to be significantly smaller.

University Rankings

Positions of the university of edinburgh in top uk and global rankings., about the university of edinburgh.

The University of Edinburgh is located in the Scottish city of the same name, and is one of the oldest universities in the entire United Kingdom, having opened in the year 1583. The university enjoys a strong reputation for its contributions to international research efforts, which is reflected in their inclusion in the Russell Group, Universitas 21, and Una Europa. Edinburgh offers its residents a historic yet modern city, with a lively nightlife scene, reliable public transport, and friendly locals.

List of 686 Bachelor and Master Courses from The University of Edinburgh - Course Catalogue

Where is this programme taught

Similar courses

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Social Anthropology MSc

The university of edinburgh, different course options.

• Key information

Course Summary

Tuition fees, entry requirements, similar courses at different universities, key information data source : idp connect, qualification type.

MSc - Master of Science

Subject areas

Social Anthropology

Course type

Programme description

This programme offers an intensive introduction to contemporary social anthropology.

Working within a rich and active research culture, we shall explore the distinctive nature of social anthropology and its contribution to a critical and informed understanding of the contemporary world - a world reflected in the diversity of our research and teaching interests.

Courses range from those offering an overview of anthropological theory to those examining specific issues such as kinship, gender, development and religion.

Who this programme is for

It is primarily intended for graduates with little or no previous training in anthropology. These may be either students contemplating future doctoral research in the subject or students who wish to acquire anthropological expertise to supplement their existing range of professional skills.

Whether your aim is to explore the possibilities of doctoral research or add anthropological expertise to your existing professional skills, this MSc offers an intensive introduction to social anthropology.

UK fees Course fees for UK students

For this course (per year)

International fees Course fees for EU and international students

A UK 2:1 honours degree or its international equivalent.

MA Social Anthropology

Soas university of london, mres social anthropology, ma social anthropology and intensive language (persian), ma social anthropology and intensive language (turkish), ma social anthropology and intensive language (arabic).

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• Events Calendar

Hale Herald - Spring 2024

Chair's Letter

Warmth has finally arrived in Boulder, just after a foot of snow canceled classes. We remain undefeated by the weather and in good spirits. As I write, we are currently hosting Distinguished Cultural Anthropologist Julie Chu, professor at the University of Chicago. It has been a busy semester of talks, workshops, and visitors including Venezuelan Fulbright Scholar Dr. Hortensia Caballero. Thank you all for bringing such energy and brilliance to these important events.

In February, we had another fun and inspiring accepted student weekend. Thanks to the graduate committee and our graduate students for their thoughtful work to warmly welcome these future grad students. Cultural anthropology professor Alison Cool gave a keynote lecture as did University of Pittsburgh archaeology professor Dela Kuma. We are excited for the new students who will join us in August!

Finally, the Department of Anthropology graduation will be Thursday, May 9 at 4:30 pm outside Hale on the lawn. Once again, professor Alison Cool will delight us with her insights as speaker. Congratulations in advance to all our graduates!

Please read on to learn about the innovative work CU anthropologists are doing on campus and around the world.

All the best from Hale,

Carole McGranahan, Chair

Graduate Student News

Georgia Butcher in the 3MT Finals

Nicholas Puente Receives CARTTS Award

Jack Dalton Featured on German Children's Show: Anna Und Die Wilden Tiere

Paige Edmiston Receives Carol B. Lynch Memorial Fellowship & Publishes Article in Diabetes Technology and Therapeutics

Kelsey Hoppes Awarded Donna C. Roper Research Fund

Graduate Students Yuti Gao, Kelsey Hoppes, Patrick McKenzie, and Nicholas Puente Receive Beverly Sears Awards

Clara Hwayeon Lee Receives the Center for Humanities & the Arts JEDI Completion Fellowship

Sarah Simeonoff Successfully Defends Her PhD Qualifying Exam

Anthropology Department Pre-Dissertation Awards

Anthropology spotlights.

Faculty Spotlight Spring 2024

Lauren hosek (biological anthropolgy, professor).

Professor Lauren Hosoek is a historical bioarchaeologist and her research integrates osteological data from human skeletal remains with archaeological and historical evidence.  She utilizes these intersecting sources to examine how large-scale social phenomena such as religious ideology and institutional practices become embodied through ritual and activity across the life course. Her research projects span from early medieval Central Europe to the 19 th -century American West. Most recently, She has been working on a community-based project in the Denver area exploring the health and ritual practice of the 19 th -century Catholic Sisters of Loretto in collaboration with the living Loretto Community.

Graduate Student Spotlight Spring 2024

Chu may paing (cultural anthropology, phd candidate).

Chu's dissertation titled "Intense Engagements: Social Media Activism in the Aftermath of the 2021 Military Coup in Myanmar" looks at how ordinary Myanmar people's political engagement is fueled by circulation of certain public feelings on social media spaces in the aftermath of the 2021 military coup in Myanmar. Her dissertation explores how the intense circulation of images and speech online creates an atmosphere in which social and political ideals for a new Myanmar are constantly written and rewritten.

Undergraduate Spotlight Spring 2024

Skylar davidson (minor in anthropology in progress).

Skylar is a 4th-year student at CU Boulder, pursuing an Anthropology minor. After taking Primate Life History with Dr. Michelle Sauther, she developed a passion for Primatology and excitedly added an ANTH minor. In the summer of 2023, Skylar traveled abroad to Vietnam with Dr. Covert and Dr. O’Brien to study its diverse ecosystem and native primates. Being in Vietnam developed Skylar’s deep love for the endangered Pygmy Loris and she plans to pursue a Master’s and PhD in Biological Anthropology. She intends to lead conservation research for this species and find her way back to Vietnam.

Alumni Spotlight Spring 2024

Jamie forde (phd anthropology 2015 ).

Dr. Forde is a Lecturer (equivalent to Assistant Professor) in History of Art at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Trained as an anthropological archaeologist at CU, he employs both art historical and archaeological methods in studying Indigenous Mesoamerican material and visual culture during the periods surrounding colonial encounter with Europeans. His work has been focused in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca, particularly the site of Achiutla, where he has directed an interdisciplinary field project. His research has been published in journals including  Ancient Mesoamerica, Colonial Latin American Review,  and  Ethnohistory .

Faculty News

Steve Leigh Awarded the Gabriel W. Lasker Service Award

Jerry Jacka Publishes Chapter in Anthropology and Climate Change

Fernando Villanea Gave an Online HOT (Human Origins Today) Topic for the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History

Warren Thompson Publishes Article in the Journal of Anthropological Research

Will Taylor and Lakota Elders Receive AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize

Sharon DeWitte's Bioarchaeological Work Featured in the Coloradan Alumni Magazine

Chris Hammons Receives a Kayden Research Award & a Center for Humanities & the Arts Small Grant

Graduate student symposium 2024.

Graduate Student Symposium a Huge Success!

Undergraduate news.

Sophia Busse Receives Graduate Student Symposium Best Poster Award

Undergraduate Students Represent at the AABA Conference

Upcoming events.

Upstream, Downstream, Offshore: Constancy Amidst the Flux of Supply Chains

Upstream, Downstream, Offshore: Constancy Amidst the Flux of Supply Chains 4pm, April 12, British Studies Room

Dr. Julie Chu Associate Professor -Department of Anthropology University of Chicago

Fluvial landscapes have long undergirded logistical projects for building out and maintaining the infrastructural channels of commerce and travel. Drawing on two decades of ethnographic engagements with original “development deltas” of Post-Mao China linking coastal Special Economic Zones to global exchange, this talk offers an estuarial take on what scholars of modernity and supply chain capitalism have described as a “liquid” world full of uncertainty and volatility. This talk focuses on the temporal politics of constancy that make fluvial landscapes thinkable in terms of supply chains and in turn, actionable as valued lifeways.

Co-sponsored by the University of Colorado Boulder Department of Anthropology and the Center for Asian Studies. Free and open to the public.

Digital Aestheticization of the Environment

Digital Aestheticization of the Environment 4PM, April 19, Hale Science RM 230

Veronika Zavratnik Postdoctoral Researcher University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

By becoming increasingly digitalized, the aestheticization of the environment permeates our daily lives. Simply by looking around or listening attentively in any naturalsetting, it can easily be observed that people's engagements with their surroundings are different from a decade ago. Today, ti is hard to find someone in the mountains, by the sea or in the forest who is not tapping on their smartphone, flying drones, using wearable cameras or other devices to digitally 'capture' and augment their experience of the environment. Images, blogs, vlogs and newly added (tourist/walking) maps are then circulated through digital technologies and media, uprooting and disseminating places and environments through time and space.

This talk draws on the ongoing collaborative research project (2022-2025) that aims to study the transformative moment of environmental perceptions by focusing on digital aestheticization as it unfolds in everyday contexts of outdoor leisure in selected European countries - Slovenia, Croatia, Poland, Sweden and Finland. The emphasis will be put on how, through digital aestheticization, sustainability and environmental change become perceptible and meaningful in the local and/or regional context.

Degree Programme Table: Social Anthropology (PhD) (Full-time) (PRPHDSANPY1F)

Year 1 academic year: 2023/24, starting in: september.

There are no compulsory courses in this year of this programme.

School of Social and Political Science

Phd social and political science, introduction.

The deadline to apply for September 2024 entry is Monday 1 July 2024.

On this PhD programme you will carry out independent research, resulting in an original contribution to knowledge in your chosen area.  

Our expertise and interests range across the following subject areas:   

• African studies  
• global health policy  
• international development  
• medical anthropology  
• politics and international relations  
• social and public policy  
• social anthropology  
• social work  
• sociology  
• socio-cultural studies  
• South Asian studies 
• sustainable development

On our PhD programme, you will be able to choose from a range of courses that provide research training in social science methods, including qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods.  

You can also take courses addressing aspects such as research ethics and positionality, as well as substantive taught courses in the School of Social and Political Science as relevant for your thesis. 

The given period of study for a full-time PhD is three years, and your thesis will be submitted towards the end of your third year. 

As a Social and Political Science PhD student, you will learn to design and generate original research. You will gain knowledge of principal research methods, and practice in ways that are reflective, self-critical and based on research and evidence. 

You will have access to a suite of professional development courses and workshops offered by the University’s Institute for Academic Development and the School’s Student Development Office. 

You will also be part of the  Scottish Graduate School of Social Science , meaning you can participate in all its offered courses, events, and initiatives such as internships. 

Your application must clearly state the potential supervisor you have contacted.  

While you are studying on the PhD programme, you will be under the supervision of at least two members of academic staff. 

On completion of this PhD, you will have gained many graduate attributes that are highly regarded in the field of social and political science.

Among other things, you will be able to: 

• demonstrate substantial authority and exercise a high level of autonomy and initiative in academic and equivalent activities  
• manage complex ethical and professional issues  
• display critical, detailed and leading knowledge and understanding of literature at the forefront of the specialist research area  
• use critical judgement in both your own work and the work of other scholars in the field  
• communicate to a range of audiences through your published academic work 

Applying for this PhD

• Identify potential supervisors suited to your research interests
• Write a draft research proposal
• Contact the Postgraduate Advisor with your research proposal and list of potential supervisors
• Once discussed with the Postgraduate Advisor, formally submit your application on EUCLID

Postgraduate Advisor