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

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 teaches students how to use ethnographic methods to make sense of the internet, which we now increasingly inhabit. Students learn how to navigate and analyse platforms such as Facebook or TikTok. They study how these technologies transform our relationships, identities, and ideas of truth. The module also examines the socio-cultural and ethical aspects of digital worlds (e.g. Second life).

Assessment: 100% Coursework

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.

Using ethnography, we analyse how coastal communities use the sea – not only as a source of livelihood, but as a key ingredient in the construction of their identity and place in world. Drawing on a range of cases from across the world – from Polynesian sorcerers, to Japanese whale mourners, to Cornish surfers – we study how coastal communities are responding to climate change, sea level rise, pollution, and extinction.

Assessment: 100% Coursework

This module introduces students to the key concepts and issues in contemporary works of creative nonfiction, or 'life writing'. Included in our readings will be works of memoir and autobiography, travel writing, personal essays and reportage. The module is entirely taught in workshops where we experiment with producing our own works of creative nonfiction and learning to refine them, as well as critically evaluate and contextualise them.

Assessment: 100% Coursework

This module offers students an in-depth experience of professional writing. We will explore technique in features and literary journalism.

Assessment: 100% Coursework