Social Anthropology & Criminology
Social anthropology and criminology is a pairing that approaches questions of behaviour, deviance and social control from two complementary angles. Social anthropology examines human social and cultural diversity through ethnographic methods, asking how different societies organise themselves, make meaning, manage conflict and construct categories of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. Criminology analyses crime, criminal justice and the social responses to lawbreaking, drawing on sociology, psychology and legal theory to understand who is criminalised, how institutions respond to crime and whether they succeed in their goals.
Together they develop a nuanced and comparative approach to some of the most important questions about human social life.
At the University of Manchester, this three-year full-time programme draws on the strengths of two strong social science departments, giving you access to excellent teaching and research across both disciplines. You will study ethnographic methods and social anthropological theory alongside criminological theory, research methods, the sociology of crime and the institutions of criminal justice. The combination trains you to think comparatively about social control across different cultural contexts, and to move between anthropological depth and criminological breadth in your analysis.
Graduates work in international development, NGOs, social research, criminal justice organisations, policy analysis, academia, community and social work, education, journalism and the charitable sector. The qualitative research skills and cultural sensitivity that social anthropology develops, combined with the analytical framework of criminology, are particularly valued in roles that involve working with diverse communities or understanding how formal institutions respond to social problems. Postgraduate study in social anthropology, criminology, international development, social policy or related fields is a natural progression for those who wish to develop specialist expertise.