Aims and Outcomes of Undergraduate Study in Social Anthropology
The Sub-Honours modules are primarily designed to lay the foundations for further study at Honours level in Anthropology. While the grades earned at Sub-Honours level are not factored into your overall degree classification, they do appear on your official University transcript, which will be seen by any future employers or institutions to which you apply.
The Honours modules are designed to build on the foundations laid by Sub-Honours modules in Anthropology, and give students the opportunity to develop and broaden their understanding of Anthropology. In addition, Honours modules are designed to equip students with a broad range of personal and intellectual skills which will not only enable students to successfully complete their degree but will provide a foundation for further training and prepare them fully for their future careers.
Disciplinary outlook
Our programme aims at enabling students to learn to think anthropologically, acquiring a distinctive disciplinary outlook. To this end, the programme aims to enable learners to develop the following:
- an understanding of social anthropology as the comparative study of human societies and cultures;
- an appreciation of the importance of empirical fieldwork as the primary method of gathering data and as a basis for the generation of anthropological theory;
- a detailed knowledge of specific themes in social anthropology and the intellectual debates concerning them, such as gender, religion, kinship, nationalism, exchange or material culture;
- a realisation that knowledge is contested; that anthropology by its nature is dynamic, constantly generating new priorities and theories; and that the peoples with whom anthropologists have traditionally worked may have studies of themselves from which we might also learn;
- an informed awareness of, and sensitivity to, human diversity, an appreciation of its scope and complexity, and recognition of the richness of experience and potential that it provides;
- self-reflection regarding both the nature of our knowledge of the social and of the role of the anthropologist or ethnographer in the collection and presentation of data.
Theoretical and thematic competence
The learners' achievement of an anthropological outlook has to be grounded on an understanding of the development of the theoretical and thematic scope of the discipline. Our programme is designed to enable learners to achieve the following:
- an acquaintance with the theory and history of anthropology;
- an ability to recognise, assess and make use of different theoretical approaches within the discipline, and an awareness of links to cognate bodies of theory, such as philosophy, history, linguistics and feminist theory;
- a detailed knowledge of anthropological work on particular areas of the world presented as regional courses (such as South America and the Caribbean, Europe, Central Asia, the Pacific and Africa);
- a familiarity with a range of anthropological methods of representing data, including primary and secondary texts, film and other visual media, and oral sources;
- an awareness of ethical issues concerned with the study and representation of others;
- an awareness of the ways in which anthropological knowledge can be applied (and misapplied) in a range of practical situations;
- an awareness of social and historical change, and knowledge of some paradigms and modes (including indigenous ones) for explaining it;
- an ability to recognise and analyse contexts in which relations of power, subordination and resistance affect the forms taken by human communities;
- an appreciation of the interconnections between various aspects of social and cultural life, belief systems, global forces, individual behaviour and the physical environment.
Subject-specific skills
Depending upon the proportion of social anthropology within their degree programme, students will be able to demonstrate the following:
- an ability to understand how human beings interact with their social, cultural and physical environments, and an appreciation of their social and cultural diversity;
- the ability to formulate, investigate and discuss anthropologically informed questions;
- a competence in using major theoretical perspectives and concepts in anthropology;
- the ability to engage with cultures, populations and groups different from their own, without forgoing a sense of personal judgement. An awareness of cultural assumptions, including their own, and the ways in which these impact on an interpretation of others;
- a recognition of the politics of language, indirect forms of communication, forms of power, theoretical statements and claims of authority, and an ability to analyse them;
- the ability to apply anthropological knowledge to a variety of practical situations, personal and professional;
- the ability to plan, undertake and present scholarly work that demonstrates an understanding of anthropological aims, methods and theoretical considerations.
Generic skills
Depending upon the nature and focus of their degree programme, student attainment will include some or all of the following:
- an ability to understand their strengths and weaknesses in learning and study skills and to take action to improve their capacity to learn;
- the capacity to express their own ideas in writing, to summarise the arguments of others, and to distinguish between the two;
- independence of thought and analytical, critical and synoptic skills;
- information retrieval skills in relation to primary and secondary source of information;
- communication and presentation skills (using oral and written materials and information technology);
- scholarly skills, such as the ability to make a structured argument, reference the works of others, and assess evidence;
- time planning and management skills;
- the ability to engage, where appropriate, in constructive discussion in group situations and group-work skills;
- computing techniques.