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Department of Social Anthropology

 

 David Sneath)

The ways in which human beings interact with nature, produce, distribute and consume the fruits of their labour, and attend to the health and flourishing of themselves and those around them are core concerns of social anthropology.  Our Department has long-standing strengths in economic and environmental anthropology, and we have an established and growing commitment to medical anthropology.  Through the lenses of a range of theoretical approaches, and with an interest in the past as well as in contemporary societies, we explore such issues as class, labour, and corruption; cultural conceptions of life and death; the body; bioethics; land use; development, pastoralism; and the social causes and impacts of climate change.  Research in these areas is conducted throughout the Department, and it makes central contributions to work in the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit and to the interdisciplinary MPhil in Health, Medicine and Society.