Social Anthropology and Politics

Social anthropology and politics is a combination that illuminates human social life from two complementary angles. Anthropology is the comparative study of human societies and cultures, asking how different communities organise their social lives, make meaning, exercise authority, and sustain themselves over time. It demands sustained attention to context and a willingness to take seriously ways of life very different from one's own.

Politics examines how power is distributed and contested, how institutions are structured, and how collective decisions are made at local, national, and international levels. Together, the two disciplines develop a sophisticated understanding of how human societies function and change.

At the School of Oriental and African Studies this three-year full-time programme is taught within an institution with unparalleled depth in the study of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the wider developing world. This gives your study of both anthropology and politics a distinctive global orientation, situating questions of governance, social organisation, identity, and power in contexts beyond the Western European and North American perspectives that dominate many university curricula. You will engage with ethnographic methods and social theory alongside political science, comparative politics, and international relations.

A foundation year route is available for students who would benefit from additional preparation before beginning the main degree.

Graduates from social anthropology and politics are well prepared for careers in international development, diplomacy, the civil service, NGOs, journalism, policy research, and international organisations. The combination of in-depth cultural knowledge, particularly of the Global South, with analytical understanding of political structures is genuinely rare and valued in organisations working across regional and national boundaries. Many graduates also continue to postgraduate study in anthropology, political science, development studies, or international relations, often with a geographic specialism in Africa, South Asia, East Asia, or the Middle East.