Engaged Anthropology, MA

University of Wales Trinity Saint David, the United Kingdom

Study options for this course

The award	How you will study	Study duration	Course start	Domestic course fees	International course fees
MA	Full-time	1 - 2 year	find out	find out	find out
MA	Part-time	2 - 4 years	find out	find out	find out

About Engaged Anthropology, MA - at University of Wales Trinity Saint David

Course Overview

T'he programme is our main advanced Social Anthropology offering, and the title 'Engaged Anthropology' reflects our unique approach to the discipline.

At UWTSD we encourage students to be anthropologists, apply their learning and engage with pressing issues - such as climate change, food security, globalisation and the preservation of the past - which people across the world are facing today.

As such, theory and practice are woven together as students reflect upon political and economic relations and broader power dynamics, both historically and in the contemporary world, and consider how individual and collective actions can challenge, create and/or reinforce social inequalities and injustices.

The programme is designed to encourage students to develop ethically sophisticated and sustainable approaches to social action, while also considering what sustainability - in relation to economic systems, cultural practices, community, knowledge, relations with the environment and the discipline of anthropology - and ethical practice means in cross-cultural settings.

The programme is shaped by students' interests and currently offers three specialist pathways in Food Cultures and Practices; Heritage and Material Culture; and Human - Environment Relations.

Key Features

The programme is founded upon an established pool of expertise in Anthropology and Anthropologically-related concerns, and covers a range of projects undertaken over a number of years:

Staff are research active and regularly attend academic conferences.
Study cutting-edge areas of academic interest, notably the anthropology of food and health
The staff expertise represents a considerable bank of knowledge and skills that will underpin this programme and will ensure students enjoy a high-quality educational experience.
An online and distance learning option is available, students taking the distance learning route follow the same programme as residential students and have up to two years to complete full-time and four years to complete part-time.

Modules

Engaging with Anthropological Theory: This module explores the influence and usefulness of three theorists that have been influential in anthropology - Marx, Foucault and Latour - in some depth, and examines how they have been applied in the production of ethnography.
Anthropological Research Methods in Practice: This module is intended to help students develop a critical awareness in reflexive thinking, especially as related to ethics. They are asked to consider thoroughly how anthropologists have engaged in thinking reflexively about their particular fieldwork situations and how they have written their ethnographic accounts. This module therefore invites students to engage with theoretical frameworks underpinning data collection in ethnographic research and the subsequent process of writing about it.
Key Debates in Anthropological Theory: This module adopts the original intentions and format of the GDAT group. This is achieved by introducing students to some of the debates covered by the original Group and by presenting some new topics of contemporary relevance to launch the students into conceiving of their own contribution in a class debate. Indicative list of subjects that may be covered: advocacy, aesthetics, gender bias, agency, ontologies/epistemologies, neoliberalism, post-humanism, new animism, rights and ethics.
The Politics of Food: Food lies at the centre of a myriad of human practices, and has consequently been the focus of various forms of inquiry. From field and farm, to laboratory and production line, to kitchen and dining table, the supermarket shelf and restaurant, food is a profoundly social and political substance; one through which social relations and cultural phenomena are (re)produced and transformed. This module will address the historically and culturally variable forms of food production, exchange, preparation, and consumption as the means through which both individual and social bodies are constructed and reproduced. The course will serve as a vehicle to examine how social subjectivities, political and economic relations, and hierarchies have been and are produced through the medium of food.
Heritage Tourism Contexts : This module develops a critical understanding of the heritage tourism industry and the internal and external factors that contribute to it.
Heritage: Representation and Interpretation : The module will explore a variety of conceptual and definitional questions surrounding notions and practices of heritage, and its relationship with the Past. It will focus upon the notion of heritage as cultural practice and thus explore questions such as where does heritage come from, how is it made, what does it do, and how does it relate to the past and present.
Exhibiting the Past: Museums, Collections and Heritage: This course aims to make students acquainted with museums in the UK and also where possible, world-wide, to let them understand organisational and financial structures, and to acquaint them with the issues and techniques associated with museum management. To achieve this, the students will research the history of collecting since ancient times. It also aims to demonstrate the necessary practical knowledge and skills how to plan exhibitions.
Sacred Geography: This module explores how sacred geography manifests in, and relates to, different dimensions of human religious experience.

International

We welcome international students to apply to our programmes. If your first language is not English, we will require you to have achieved a minimum of 6.0 overall and a minimum of 5.5 in each component of reading, writing, listening and speaking in an IELTS English language test, or equivalent.

Course Tutor(s)

Dr David Morgans
Dr Emma-Jayne Abbots
Luci Attala
Dr Katharina Zinn
Dr Geraint Davies
Dr Nicholas Campion

Assessment

Assessment is usually based on written work in the form of long and short essays, reports, book reviews and reflective pieces.

Further Information

Distance Study

Most of the postgraduate programmes within the Faculty of Humanities are available to distance learners, and indeed the greater part of our postgraduate cohort comprises distance learners. Every student has access to all module materials, including reading lists, on the Virtual Learning Environment (Moodle). All modules are taught by our lecturers, and are designed to be accessible and friendly to learning at a distance. Many of the modules are delivered in a blended fashion with use of video and audio presentations by the lecturers on each individual topic.

It is essential that distance learners have a good internet access, as well as use of computer facilities; the University offers all distance students individual support in accessing material from home. The University of Wales Trinity Saint David Learning Resources Centre provides access to a variety of electronic academic material to distance learners, including, including journal articles, e-books and specialist resources'

Related Courses

MA Philosophy and Religion: Eastern and Western Thought
MA Study of Religions
MA Cultural Astronomy and Astrology

Tuition Fees

Find out about our fees here.

Don't forget to check out the UWTSD Scholarships and Bursaries.

Entry requirements

Entry Criteria

The normalminimum requirement for admission is a Bachelor's degree, with good II.1 honours, or equivalent. However as part of an inclusive approach to learning we encourage students from non traditional entry points or without recognised educational backgrounds but who have an equivalent and appropriate professional qualification or significant relevant professional experience to apply. In such cases the programme leader may ask for a telephone/ Skype conversation or request evidence in the form of a piece of work, report, analysis of some sort to satisfy themselves that each student is able to fulfil their potential on the course. International students will be required to have achieved a minimum of 6.0 overall and a minimum of 5.5 in each component of reading, writing, listening and speaking in a UKVI approved IELTS English language test.

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Engaged Anthropology, MA

Study options for this course

About Engaged Anthropology, MA - at University of Wales Trinity Saint David

Entry requirements

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Other courses at University of Wales Trinity Saint David

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