BA (Hons) Anthropology with Foundation Bachelor's degree at the University of Plymouth

This module introduces students to the core academic and organisational skills required to succeed at university. Through skill development sessions, students will practice and apply essential academic skills in the context of their field of study, building confidence and independence as they transition to university-level work.

This module enables students to undertake an individual project on a topic of interest within their field. With supervision and support, they will define, plan and develop the project, gaining experience in designing research questions and identifying sources, methods, and literature. Through this process, students build research, time management and independent learning skills to support progression through their degree.

This module introduces students to the main institutions and processes of the legal system and criminal justice in England and Wales, while developing key transferable skills related to the study and practice of law and criminal justice.

Through the lens of human rights and social justice this module introduces students to a foundational sociological understanding of the structure and organisation of society, the main institutions of domestic and international government, and the theories and concepts used by political science to study them.

This introductory module provides students new to anthropology to the core topics, goals, theories, and methods of the discipline. Students will learn foundational skills related to how to understand and analyse forms of human life socially, culturally, and morally different from their own. They will also learn how to compare different societies in order to produce solid arguments about the human condition.

Assessment: 100% Coursework

In this module, students will learn how to conduct an ethnographic project from inception to completion. We will focus on training methodological skills, familiarising ourselves with anthropological ethics, and producing anthropological arguments using the ethnographic evidence we ourselves collect.

Assessment: 100% Coursework

This module explores how and why social inequalities influence lived experience and social identities. It focuses on a range of substantive issues, such as poverty, social class and hierarchies, health, gender and sexuality, family and kinship, neo-colonialism and 'race', and violence and ethnicity. This module explores how these influence culture, social identities and lived experience throughout the life-course.

Assessment: 100% Coursework

This module introduces students to interdisciplinary approaches concerned with 'how we became human'. The module examines the unique characteristics of Homo Sapiens, focusing on evolutionary changes, tool use, mythology, social organisation, equality and inequality, intersubjectivity and symbolic culture (art, ritual, language and myth). Students will be introduced to key theories on human evolution, the evolution of language and its relationship with symbolic thought, while investigating social

Assessment: 100% Coursework

This module introduces students to key features of classical social theory. These features are placed within the context of the Enlightenment, Modernity, the emergence of modern science and social science, and their use for contemporary social analyses.

Assessment: 100% Coursework

This module draws on sociological and anthropological sources to examine how societies perceive, transform, control and use the human body. The module explores topics such as the disciplining and surveillance of bodies, the development of "habitus", bodily adornment and transformation, gender and sexuality, biopolitics, the commercialisation of the human body, and the body as a window on wider symbolic-cultural orders.

Assessment: 100% Coursework

This module that uses ethnographic evidence from across the world to examine how humans exploit their environments (and each other) to make a living. Focus will be on how 'value' is socially produced, on how different societies people produce, distribute, consume, accumulate, and own resources, and on how economic practices interact with other spheres of society.

Assessment: 100% Coursework

This module examines the nature and function of humour and laughter across a range of socio-cultural and political-economic settings. Students examine how humour can create, reinforce, shape, and undermine and destroy all sorts of political relationships and structures. Accordingly, we see how mockery, sarcasm, and ridicule can become tools of domination, resistance, and transformation.

Assessment: 100% Coursework

This module explores the comparative method in anthropology and its application in museum spaces. We examine these debates through the lens of religion, gender, and material culture across Amazonia, Melanesia, Australia, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Students design a comparative exhibition, engaging critically with decolonizing museum practice acquiring hands-on, professional skills in museum ethnography and curation.

Assessment: 100% Coursework

In this module, students are acquainted with advanced ethnographic research techniques, including reflexivity, netnography, multi-species relations, narrative analysis and multi-sensory ethnography. They also explore the interplay between methods and writing. Building on their existing skills, students develop a research project that applies these advanced concepts and methods.

Assessment: 100% Coursework

The module introduces current theoretical disputes framed within the context of classical and early modern theories of society and culture. These debates are linked to historical events and social and cultural research that reciprocally influence contemporary theoretical change. Foundational disciplinary questions are broached, and formative critical workshops assist in developing theoretical analysis and evaluation.

This module is for students in the School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences who are interested in undertaking an optional placement in the third year of their programme. It supports students in their search, application, and preparation for the placement, including developing interview techniques and effective application materials (e.g. CVs, portfolios, and cover letters).

Students have the opportunity to gain work experience that will set them apart in the job market when they graduate by undertaking an optional flexible placement year. The placement must be a minimum of 24-weeks (which can be split between a maximum of two different placement providers) and up to a maximum of 48-weeks over the course of the academic year. The placement is flexible and can be undertaken virtually, part or full time and either paid or voluntary. Students will have the option to un

This module provides students with the opportunity to undertake their own sociological, criminological, professional policing or anthropological research project, working independently but under the supervision of an academic member of staff from the relevant discipline.