Entry requirements

A good honours degree (2.1 or above) in anthropology or other associated fields, including environmental studies.

All applicants are considered on an individual basis and additional qualifications, professional qualifications and relevant experience may also be taken into account when considering applications.

International students

Please see our International Student website for entry requirements by country and other relevant information. Please note that international fee-paying students cannot undertake a part-time programme due to visa restrictions.

English language entry requirements

The University requires all non-native speakers of English to reach a minimum standard of proficiency in written and spoken English before beginning a postgraduate degree. Certain subjects require a higher level.

For detailed information see our English language requirements web pages.

Need help with English?

Please note that if you are required to meet an English language condition, we offer a number of pre-sessional courses in English for Academic Purposes through Kent International Pathways.

Teaching and assessment

Assessment is by written reports, oral presentations and the dissertation.

Programme aims

This programme aims to:

• to provide you with a broad range of knowledge in environmental anthropology, a major sub-division of anthropology, showing how it is closely linked to other academic disciplines
• to provide you with advanced level knowledge of the theoretical, methodological and policy issues relevant to understanding the subdiscipline
• introduce you to a variety of different approaches to environmental anthropology research, presented in a multidisciplinary context and at an advanced level
• facilitate your educational experience through the provision of appropriate pedagogical opportunities for learning
• provide an appropriate training if you are preparing MPhil/PhD theses, or if you are going on to employment involving the use of research methods and results in environmental anthropology
• make you aware of the range of existing material available and equip you to evaluate its utility for your research
• cover the principles of research design and strategy, including formulating research questions or hypotheses and translating them into practicable research designs.
• introduce you to the philosophical, theoretical and ethical issues surrounding research and to debates about the relationship between theory and research, about problems of evidence and inference, and about the limits to objectivity.
• develop your skills in searching for and retrieving information, using library and internet resources in a multidisciplinary and cross-national context.
• introduce you to the idea of working with other academic and non-academic agencies, when appropriate, and give you the skills to carry out collaborative research.
• develop your skills in writing, in the preparation of a research proposal, in the analysis and presentation of research results and in verbal communication
• help you to prepare your research results for wider dissemination, in the form of seminar papers, conference presentations, reports and publications, in a form suitable for a range of different audiences, including academics, policymakers, professionals, service users and the general public.
• give you an appreciation of the potentialities and problems of environmental anthropological research in local, regional, national and international settings
• ensure that the research of the Department’s staff informs the design of modules, and their content and delivery in ways that can achieve the national benchmarks of the subject in a manner which is efficient and reliable, and enjoyable to students.

Learning outcomes

Knowledge and understanding

You will gain knowledge and understanding of:

• environmental anthropology as the comparative and interdisciplinary study of the relationship between people and their environment
• specific themes in environmental anthropology eg co-evolution of humans and environment, environmental perception, cultural ecology, nature symbolism, environmentalism, political ecology, natural resource use, environmental change
• cultural and biological diversity and an appreciation of its scope
• several ethnographic regions of the world, including north and west Africa, South America, Pacific Islands, South  Asia and Southeast Asia (in particular Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines)
• the history of the development of environmental anthropology as a subject
• the variety of theoretical approaches contained within the subject
• the process of biological and socio-cultural change
• the application of environmental anthropology to understanding issues of sustainable social and economic development and environmental conservation throughout the world
• the relevance of environmental anthropology to understanding everyday processes of human-environment interaction anywhere in the world.

Intellectual skills

You develop intellectual skills in:

• general learning and study skills
• critical and analytical skills
• expression of ideas both orally and in written form
• communication skills
• groupwork skills
• computing skills
• reviewing and summarising information
• data retrieval ability.

Subject-specific skills

You gain subject-specific skills in:

• the ability to understand how people are shaped by their social, cultural and physical environments while nonetheless possessing a capacity for individual agency which can allow them to transcend some environmental constraints
• the ability to recognise the pertinence of an environmental anthropological perspective to understanding major national and international events.
• the ability to interpret texts and performance by locating them within appropriate cultural and historical contexts
• high-level competence in using environmental anthropological theories and perspectives in the presentation of information and argument
• high-level ability to identify and analyse the significance of the social and cultural contexts of natural resource use
• the ability to devise questions for research and study which are anthropologically informed
• the ability to perceive the way in which cultural assumptions may affect the perception and use of natural resources
• an openness to try and make rational sense of human-environment interactions that may appear at first sight incomprehensible.

Transferable skills

You will gain the following transferable skills:

• the ability to make a structured argument
• the ability to make appropriate reference to scholarly data
• time-management skills
• the use of information technology including computers and library research
• groupwork
• handling audio-visual equipment
• independent research
• presentation skills
• have the ability to exercise initiative and personal responsibility
• have the independent learning ability required for continuing professional development.

Fees

The 2020/21 annual tuition fees for this programme are:

Environmental Anthropology – MA at Canterbury

• Home/EU full-time: £7,900
• International full-time: £16,200
• Home/EU part-time: £3,950
• International part-time: £8,100

Environmental Anthropology – MSc at Canterbury

• Home/EU full-time: £10,060
• International full-time: £19,800
• Home/EU part-time: £5,030
• International part-time: £9,900

For details of when and how to pay fees and charges, please see our Student Finance Guide.

For students continuing on this programme fees will increase year on year by no more than RPI + 3% in each academic year of study except where regulated.* If you are uncertain about your fee status please contact information@kent.ac.uk

Additional costs

General additional costs

Find out more about general additional costs that you may pay when studying at Kent.

Funding

Search our scholarships finder for possible funding opportunities. You may find it helpful to look at both:

• University and external funds
• Scholarships specific to the academic school delivering this programme.

Research areas

Dynamic publishing culture

Staff publish regularly and widely in journals, conference proceedings and books. Among others, they have recently contributed to: American Ethnologist; Current Anthropology; Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute; American Journal of Physical Anthropology; Proceedings of the Royal Society B; and Journal of Human Evolution.

Environmental Anthropology and Ethnobiology

Work in these areas is focused on the Centre for Biocultural Diversity. We conduct research on ethnobiological knowledge systems, ethnoecology, and other systems of environmental knowledge, as well as local responses to deforestation, climate change, natural resource management, medical ethnobotany, the impacts of mobility and displacement and the interface between conservation and development. The Centre has an Ethnobiology Lab and Ethnobotanical Garden, and extensive collaborative links, including with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and the Eden Project.

Social Anthropology

The regional expertise of our staff has a global reach, with field sites in Europe (including UK), the Middle East, the Balkans, South Asia, Amazonia and Central America, Oceania and Southeast Asia. Themes of conflict, violence, the economic crisis and precarity form a major focus of our current work in these areas, alongside new research on austerity and its social impact, and charity. We have emerging interests in social inequality, work, and organised crime and corruption; and are internationally recognised for our work on ethnicity, nationalism, and identity.

Our research extends to intercommunal violence, diasporas, pilgrimage, intercommunal trade, urban ethnogenesis, indigenous representation and the study of contemporary religions and their global connections (especially Islam). History and heritage is another key theme, with related interests in time and temporality, and the School hosts the leading journal History and Anthropology. Other research addresses the anthropology of natural resources; anthropology of tourism; and post-socialist economy and society in Europe and Central Asia.

We research issues in fieldwork and methodology more generally, with a strong interest in the field of visual anthropology. Our work on identity and locality links with growing strengths in kinship and parenthood. This is complemented by work on the language of relatedness, and the cognitive bases of kinship terminologies

A final focus concerns science, medical anthropology and contemporary society. We work on the anthropology of business, biotechnology, and mental health. Related research focuses on policy and advocacy issues and examines the connections between public health policy and local healing strategies. Staff collaborations and networks extend widely across these regions and thematic interests, and Kent is well-known for its pioneering engagement with the anthropology of Europe.

Biological Anthropology

Our research encompasses a broad range of topics within biological and evolutionary anthropology, including bioarchaeology, forensic anthropology, archaeological science, human reproductive strategies, hominin evolution, primate behaviour and ecology, modern human variation, and cultural. We have three dedicated research laboratories, as well as a commercial osteology unit.

Our research takes us to many regions of the world (Asia, Africa, Europe, South America and the United States).  We collaborate with international research organisations, including the Instituto de Biología Subtropical (Argentina), German Primate Center, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and Budongo Conservation Field Station (Uganda).  Members of staff provide a wide research network offering research opportunities in Africa, Southeast Asia and South America.

Skeletal Biology

Our Skeletal Biology Research Centre is the only UK Centre focusing on analysis of biological hard tissues (bones and teeth). It brings together innovative research, novel methodologies and international collaborations, with expertise and resources from the Schools of Physical Sciences and Biosciences at Kent, and the Powell-Cotton Museum. Research ranges from analyses of the most important human fossils, histological studies of teeth and bone, isotopic analyses and dietary reconstruction, virtual 3D analyses of the skeleton, and forensic identification that together ultimately aim to better understand humans and our evolutionary history.

Primatology

The Living Primates Research Group fosters research into the behaviour and ecology of primates. It addresses questions concerning adaptation using living primates as model species, to provide a comparative framework for the understanding of human biology and behaviour, and investigate the biological and social dimensions of anthropogenic impacts on non-human primates (NHPs). Research ranges from functional morphology to behavioural ecology and physiology, cultural primatology, and the interplay of primate biology, ecology and conservation, including primate rehabilitation and reintroduction and human-NHP coexistence.

Digital Anthropology: Cultural Informatics and Computational Methods

Since 1985, we have pioneered new approaches to digital anthropology. Achievements include advances in kinship theory supported by new computational methods. We are exploring cloud media, semantic networks, multi-agent modelling, dual/blended realities, data mining, and smart environments. Current work also addresses quantitative approaches for assessing qualitative materials; mobile computing; sensing and communications platforms, and transformation of virtual into concrete objects.

Staff research interests

Full details of staff research interests can be found on the School’s website.

Dr Miguel Alexiades : Senior Lecturer in Environmental Anthropology/Ethnobotany

Dr Judith Bovensiepen : Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology

Professor Michael Fischer : Professor of Anthropological Sciences

Dr Matthew Hodges : Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology

Dr Sarah Johns : Senior Lecturer in Evolutionary Anthropology

Professor Tracy Kivell : Professor of Biological Anthropology

Dr Patrick Mahoney : Senior Lecturer in Biological Anthropology

Dr Nicholas E. Newton-Fisher : Reader in Primate Behavioural Ecology

Dr Daniela Peluso : Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology

Professor Joao Pina-Cabral : Professor of Social Anthropology

Dr Mike Poltorak : Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology

Dr Rajindra K Puri : Senior Lecturer in Environmental Anthropology

Professor Dimitrios Theodossopoulos : Professor of Social Anthropology

Dr Anna Waldstein : Lecturer in Medical Anthropology and Ethnobotany

Careers

As a School recognised for its excellence in research we are one of the partners in the South East Doctoral Training Centre, which is recognised by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). This relationship ensures that successful completion of our courses is sufficient preparation for research in the various fields of social anthropology. Many of our students go on to do PhD research. Others use their Master’s qualification in employment ranging from research in government departments to teaching to consultancy work overseas.

The School has a very good record for postgraduate employment and academic continuation. Studying anthropology, you develop an understanding of the complexity of all actions, beliefs and discourse by acquiring strong methodological and analytical skills. Anthropologists are increasingly being hired by companies and organisations that recognise the value of employing people who understand the complexities of societies and organisations.

Many of our alumni teach in academic positions in universities across the world, while others work for a wide range of organisations. Examples of positions held by our alumni include:

• Project director for the Global Diversity Foundation
• Curator at Beirut Botanic Gardens.

Study support

Postgraduate resources

The School has a lively postgraduate community drawn together not only by shared resources such as postgraduate rooms, computer facilities (with a dedicated IT officer) and laboratories, but also by student-led events, societies, staff/postgraduate seminars, weekly research student seminars and a number of special lectures.

The School houses well-equipped research laboratories for genetics, ecology, visual anthropology, virtual paleoanthropology, animal postcranial evolution, biological anthropology, anthropological computing, botany, osteology and ethnobiology. The state-of-the-art visual anthropology laboratory is stocked with digital editing programmes and other facilities for digital video and photographic work, and has a photographic darkroom for analogue developing and printing.

The biological anthropology laboratory is equipped for osteoarchaeological and forensic work. It curates the Powell-Cotton collection of human remains, together with Anglo-Saxon skeletons from Bishopstone, East Sussex. The ethnobiology laboratory provides equipment and specimens for teaching ethnobiological research skills, and serves as a transit station for receiving, examining and redirecting field material. It also houses the Powell-Cotton collection of plant-based material culture from Southeast Asia, and a small reference and teaching collection of herbarium and spirit specimens (1,000 items) arising from recent research projects.

Kent has outstanding anthropology IT facilities. Over the last decade, the School has been associated with many innovatory projects, particularly in the field of cognitive anthropology. It provides an electronic information service to other anthropology departments, for example by hosting both the Anthropological Index Online and Experience-Rich Anthropology project. We encourage all students to use the Centre’s facilities (no previous experience or training is necessary).

Anthropology at Kent has close links with the nearby Powell-Cotton Museum, which has one of the largest ethnographic collections in the British Isles and is particularly strong in sub-Saharan African and Southeast Asian material. It also houses an extensive comparative collection of primate and other mammalian material. Human skeletal material is housed at the Kent Osteological Research and Analysis Centre within the School.

Anthropology, together with the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) form the School of Anthropology and Conservation.

Global Skills Award

All students registered for a taught Master’s programme are eligible to apply for a place on our Global Skills Award Programme. The programme is designed to broaden your understanding of global issues and current affairs as well as to develop personal skills which will enhance your employability.