MRes

The MRes (MRes in Social Anthropology, formerly known as the MPhil SAR) provides training in research methods combined with work on a specific anthropological research project.

During this course, systematic critical discussion of your own and other research projects trains you in:

  • how fieldwork contributes to social scientific knowledge
  • how to isolate the theoretical questions that inform particular pieces of ethnography
  • how to identify the kinds of empirical evidence necessary to address those questions

You are allocated a supervisor and faculty advisor in the same way as those registered for the PhD; and you will normally continue with this supervisor throughout your PhD.

Details of the course

The taught element of this course consists of these compulsory streams:

  • The Pre-fieldwork seminar
  • The Ethnographic Methods Course, Parts I (Michaelmas) and II (Lent)
  • Statistics for Social Anthropologists (workshop in Michaelmas term)
  • The Joint Schools Course on Basic Statistical Methods, modules on Foundations in Applied Statistics and on Designing Surveys. See here for further information and a timetable.

Please see summary of the course and the MRes/PhD Lecture List.

You are also strongly encouraged to attend other optional elements:

  • The ‘Experiences from the Field’ seminar, run by writing-up students recently returned from the field.
  • The division also organises ad hoc sessions in transferable skills or anthropological method. In past years we have run workshops on technologies of research and data management, something we hope to repeat in the academic year 2011/12. We are also hoping to organise a workshop on creative writing in anthropology for Lent term 2012. Watch this space.
  • And you should attend the Senior Research Seminar, scheduled for Fridays during term time, and starting at 4.15pm. This is the place where the division really gets together, and we usually attract very good speakers from across the UK and overseas.

You are also expected to develop your own training programme by making full use of the range of courses available in the Social Anthropology and the University more widely. You should discuss your training needs with your supervisor, but you should consider the following:

  • language learning sessions. These can be organised through the University Language Centre or privately, or you can also arrange to attend undergraduate language courses, depending on circumstances.
  • training in advanced statistical methods or other qualitative social science methods provided by the Joint Schools Course in Research Methods. Of particular interest to you will be the modules on Historical Methods and Sources and Doing Qualitative Interviews, but others may also catch your eye.
  • participation in Undergraduate or Masters level lectures and seminars which address on themes specific to your research topic (this might for example include attending the seminars in the ethnography of a particular geographical area – see the course information for S6).
  • research seminars at one of the Area Studies centres in the university: African, Middle Eastern, Latin American, South Asian, Mongolia and Inner Asian, Scott Polar.

Introductory week

During the first week, you are required to attend the University’s safety and risk assessment courses and the Division of Social Anthropology’s induction course. You must also attend the Joint Schools Social Science Research Methods Course introduction sessions.

MRes Reading lists

Previous years’ reading lists are available here.