The African continent is humankind’s original home. It is a continent of vast cultural and natural resources.

The range of African societies today and in the past are enormous: from egalitarian communities to elaborately hierarchical empires. There are extremes of wealth and poverty; ancient oral cultures exist side by side with old traditions of literacy and state-of-the-art electronic media; successful local exploitation of Africa’s massive pools of biodiversity contrasts with the famines we are all too familiar from the news. What is indisputable is the creativity of the continent. Whether in coping with massive urbanisation, in developing new kinds of politics, or in inventing original literary and theatrical genres, Africans have been active and resilient makers of their own fortunes. The Department of African Studies and Anthropology teaching programmes are grounded in Africans’ own views of the continent and the world.

Studying Anthropology will enable you to develop a distinctive set of skills and attributes. You will learn how to search for, select from and evaluate sources of information, weigh up arguments, and present your findings effectively. As an anthropologist however, you will also become sensitive to the assumptions and beliefs that underlie behaviour in a range of social and cultural contexts, and this gives you a critical edge. 

We are ranked 3rd for Anthropology in The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2019, whilst we are ranked 5th for African Studies in the Complete University Guide 2019.