Social Anthropology and World Philosophies

Social anthropology and world philosophies is a combination that explores human culture, society, and thought with a genuinely global scope. Social anthropology investigates how people across cultures and historical periods have organised their lives, built their communities, and made sense of the world, using fieldwork and comparative analysis to challenge the assumptions we bring to understanding human difference. World philosophies extends this into the realm of ideas, engaging seriously with philosophical traditions from Asia, Africa, and the Americas alongside the European tradition, resisting the narrowness of a curriculum that treats Western thought as the only philosophy worth studying.

At the School of Oriental and African Studies this three-year, full-time programme includes an optional foundation year. SOAS is the ideal environment for this combination, given its founding commitment to the study of the peoples, cultures, and histories of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. You will engage with anthropological theory and method alongside a range of philosophical traditions, developing both the empirical sensitivity of the ethnographer and the argumentative precision of the philosopher.

The combination is particularly well suited to students who want to understand human diversity in depth and to think seriously about the philosophical implications of that diversity for questions of ethics, knowledge, and the good life.

Graduates of this combination pursue careers in international development, human rights, education, museums, cultural organisations, journalism, the civil service, and the third sector, where the ability to understand and respect cultural difference is directly valuable. Many continue to postgraduate study in anthropology, philosophy, religious studies, or area studies, building towards academic or policy research careers. SOAS's distinctive focus on non-Western traditions makes graduates particularly well placed for roles that require genuine engagement with the world beyond Europe and North America, in organisations from UN agencies to international NGOs and cultural institutions with global missions.