Postgraduate Study in Anthropology

Making the familiar strange, and the exotic familiar

Social Anthropology explores the cultural grounding of social life. By studying people who are ‘not like us’ – from whichever group of people it is that ‘we’ as researchers might belong – anthropologists learn about the surprising differences in everyday living around the world.

Otago offers a range of interesting and challenging study options within Social Anthropology. Visit our webpage to see our courses in Pacific cultures, friendship, reproduction and kinship, the anthropology of money, rites of passage, death studies, health studies, sex, cultural politics, religion and the supernatural, and anthropological technique and theory.

Learn about other groups of people and, in the process, find out more about yourself.

Why study Anthropology?

Anthropology will broaden your understanding of the human condition and how this is changing around the world. What are the patterns by which people organise their lives? How do ideas of difference and sameness come about? How does the movement of people through a globalised world impact the meaning and experience of culture and our sense of belonging and heritage?

Anthropologists ask questions about human variation and human differences. They study issues that affect different societies, such as changing economic and political arrangements of power, sustainable living alternatives, the tensions around community inclusion and exclusion, and the contributions of local revivalisms, resurgences and resistance to our changing worlds.

Anthropology gives you the academic tools to create meaningful connections with a wide diversity of people. You will learn to engage with cultural groups ethically and explain social life through systematic questioning and critical analysis.

Are you just starting uni?

Learn about studying Anthropology as an undergraduate at Otago.

Contacts

Social Anthropology Programme
School of Social Sciences
Email anthropology@otago.ac.nz
Web otago.ac.nz/anthropology

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