Department of Social Anthropology
About this community
Combines expertise in the central traditional fields of social anthropology with active explorations of new areas of study
The Department of Social Anthropology at Cambridge is a major centre for anthropological research. It combines expertise in the central traditional fields of social anthropology with active explorations of new areas of study. Most of the main anthropological fields of kinship, religion and ritual, economics, law and politics are studied.
Particular current interests in the department include gender relations, comparative sociology, modes of communication, medical anthropology, demographic anthropology, urban studies, philosophy and anthropology, historical anthropology, symbolic systems, economic and development anthropology, ethnicity, history of anthropology, art and aesthetics.
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Sub-communities within this community
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Digital Himalaya
Includes an extensive set of back issues of Himalayan journals, rare manuscripts and books, and numerous maps, alongside visual and audio collections
Collections in this community
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Digital Orient
A programme to understand the cultures of China, Japan, India and South Korea through the integration of multimedia, large data storage, and dynamic interactivity made possible by broadband capacities. -
Film Interviews of Academics and Others
Archival interviews with leading anthropologists, historians,ethno-musicologists, international travellers and others. -
Nepal Materials
Films, photographs and texts describing the peoples of the Nepal Himalayas.
Recent Submissions
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Whatever Happened to Respect? Values and Change in a Southwest Ethiopian (Aari) Community
(2019-10-15)Based on 22 months of fieldwork in highland southwestern Ethiopia, this thesis focuses on the role of values in processes of social change. The thesis thus joins current efforts to move beyond seeing values exclusively as ... -
Objects As Polyagents: Tracing The Histories Of The Gweagal Spears
(2019-10-26)This paper explores the capacity for objects entangled in complex - and often painful - histories to become constituted of multiple agencies (Gell 1998) through their interaction with various actants in complex and ... -
Sanal Bovaev, about mutton in rituals and divination
(Kalmyk Cultural Heritage Documentation Project, University of Cambridge, 2019-05-04)Sanal talks about the importance of mutton and cooked sheep’s head for rituals and says that sheep’s blade bone and intestines were used for divination:Since we are nomads, all our customs are connected with livestock ... -
Rimma Badmaeva, about Kalmyk cuisine
(Kalmyk Cultural Heritage Documentation Project, University of Cambridge, 2019-04-22)Rimma talks about Kalmyk cuisine: The Kalmyks love lamb most of all. Lamb can be used to make various dishes, including dumplings, tyunteg, soup, and khuursn makhn (fried lamb with pasta). Intestines are used to make ...
