Topic description and stories

Vision in the field: Photography from social anthropology

23 Jan 2024

The University’s Department of Social Anthropology studies how people live: what they make, do, think and the organisation of their relationships...

Read more
A full-page newspaper advert used to promote MNREGA

Drowning in a paper sea: India’s welfare efforts failed by its peculiar bureaucracy

21 Jul 2016

India’s sophisticated laws and progressive policies fail with startling regularity. A new study locates a possible reason as to why in the convoluted...

Read more

Rivers beyond Regeneration

04 Nov 2014

Best-known for his treatment of shell-shock victims in World War I, a new study examines William Rivers’ crucial, but often overlooked contributions...

Read more

Looking for the good

03 Aug 2014

Anthropology looks at human differences in its study of the ‘other’ and at human commonalities in its more recent focus on the ‘suffering’. In...

Read more

Reporting from Zimbabwe: a visit to Harare’s biggest township

17 Aug 2013

In the township of Mbare, anthropology student Rowan Jones finds a complex picture of poverty and propaganda - plus a baffling level of support for...

Read more
Hunting Cordyceps in Bhutan

Shooting in the field: capturing life as it’s lived

14 Aug 2013

A student photography competition showcases some of the stunning visuals that result from modern Social Anthropology research

Read more

Fostering understanding between the Islamic world and the West

07 May 2013

Frankie Martin, MPhil student in the Department of Social Anthropology will speak tonight at the showing of a documentary Journey into America: The...

Read more
Coal labourers on the Bangladeshi side of Boropani

A border without frontiers

16 Oct 2012

As India sets about constructing a metal curtain along the full length of its border with Bangladesh, Cambridge anthropology graduate Delwar Hussain...

Read more
Faith and fishing

Protestantism, prawns and politics in Scotland and Northern Ireland

21 Jun 2012

With church attendance dwindling, it’s easy to ignore the pockets of radical Protestantism that continue to flourish in many small communities...

Read more

The plant used in the rainforest remedy

Rainforest remedy could spell end of dental pain

14 Mar 2012

An ancient Incan toothache remedy – for centuries handed down among an indigenous people in the rainforests of Peru – could be on the cusp of...

Read more
Debt: an enduring human passion

No such thing as a free lunch?

10 May 2011

The process of giving and receiving (and being in debt) is an inescapable part of human experience. From sub-prime lending and student loans to organ...

Read more
Camp Fire

A strange way to share food

01 Apr 2007

Close scrutiny of the ancient remains of our ancestors’ meals gives us some sense of the development and rationale behind our strange food-sharing...

Read more