Anthropology

The Anthropology Training Pathway, consisting of Durham University and Queen’s University Belfast, has an interdisciplinary vision of anthropology. We use methods, theories and analysis from biological and social anthropology to understand the human condition in our rapidly-changing world and provide research for public benefit. From work concerned with development, health, peace and justice to cultural evolution, cognition, human/animal relations and ethnomusicology, we strive to ensure our research can have positive effects in the wider world.

At Durham, the pathway is based in the Department of Anthropology, which has strategic foci in evolutionary anthropology, anthropology of health and social anthropology. The department actively collaborates with a number of interdisciplinary institutes at Durham – including the Wolfson Research Institute for Health & Wellbeing; the Durham Global Security Institute, the Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience, the Durham Cultural Evolution Research Centre, and the Institute of Advanced Study – and postgraduate researchers in the department frequently benefit from these collaborations. Anthropology staff frequently co-supervise with staff from a range of other Durham departments including Archaeology, Geography, Sociology, Psychology and Theology.

At Queen’s, the Department of Anthropology maintains expertise in ethnomusicology, art and performance, conflict and borders, religion, cognition, migration and diasporas, Irish studies, human-animal relations, and the cross-cultural study of emotions. Staff are engaged in active collaborations with the Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice; the Institute of Irish Studies (IIS); and the Institute of Cognition and Culture (ICC). Anthropology staff co-supervise with colleagues in the Centre for Secure Information Technologies, Sociology, Geography, Law, Politics and the Creative Arts.