Religion and Anthropology

Religion and anthropology address two of the most fundamental questions in the human sciences: how do people make sense of the world and give their lives meaning, and how do we study human experience with rigour and honesty across cultures? Religion as a field of academic study encompasses the history, texts, practices, institutions and social dimensions of religious life across all traditions and periods. Anthropology brings its own distinctive methods to bear on culture, society and human diversity, including ethnographic fieldwork, cross-cultural comparison and sustained critical reflection on what it means to study others.

At the University of Manchester you will study both disciplines and the productive tensions between them. You will engage with major religious traditions from Christianity and Islam to Buddhism, Hinduism and indigenous traditions, examining their theologies, histories, rituals and social contexts. You will explore anthropological theory from early twentieth-century ethnography to contemporary debates about ethics, representation and the politics of fieldwork.

The intersection of the two fields raises some of the most interesting questions available in the humanities and social sciences: how do anthropologists study religion without either reducing it or endorsing it, what does comparative religious study assume about human nature, and how do beliefs and practices shape, and get shaped by, social structures.

Graduates from religion and anthropology programmes go on to work in international development and humanitarian organisations, cultural research, journalism, public policy, education, museum and heritage work, interfaith dialogue, and social research. The capacity for careful, respectful and critical engagement with people and ideas from different cultural backgrounds is increasingly valued in a diverse and interconnected world. Many graduates continue to postgraduate study in religious studies, social anthropology, international development, or cultural studies.

The degree equips you to think seriously about some of the deepest questions of human life.