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DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
MPHIL AND PHD IN SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY
PROGRAMME HANDBOOK
2013-2014
Contents
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INTRODUCTION...... 1
The Department of Anthropology...... 1
Areas of interest...... 1
Links...... 3
The Department of Anthropology Seminar Series...... 4
THE MPhil AND PhD IN SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY...... 4
Qualifications for entry...... 5
Application procedure...... 5
Selection procedure...... 5
Duration...... 5
Term dates and attendance requirements...... 6
Tier 4 Visa Holders...... 6
Induction...... 7
The MPhil programme...... 7
The PhD programme...... 7
Combining the M.Res. and the MPhil or PhD...... 7
Schedule of work...... 8
Supervision...... 9
The research proposal...... 11
End of First Stage Review...... 11
Ethics Clearance...... 12
Transfer from M.Res. to MPhil or PhD registration...... 12
Post-field Review of Candidates (Annual Review of Progress)...... 13
The Anthropology Research Speakers’ Seminar...... 14
Postgraduate students’ writing-up seminar...... 14
Generic research skills training...... 14
The STAR Programme...... 14
The Scottish Graduate School of Social Sciences...... 15
Aberdeen-St Andrews Joint Postgraduate Training Workshops...... 14
Guidance and support...... 14
Research Facilities...... 16
Language tuition...... 16
Teaching assistance...... 16
Extensions to study period and late submissions (past 36 months)...... 17
Regulations concerning the submission and examination of theses, and the award of the degree 20
ANTHROPOLOGY STAFF AND CONTACT DETAILS...... 23
Programme Directors...... 23
Head of Department...... 24
Departmental Staff...... 24
Anthropologists in other Departments...... 24
Secretarial and administrative staff...... 25
Anthropology staff and their interests...... 25
Further information......
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1.1 Introduction
The Department of Anthropology
Teaching and research in anthropology commenced at the University of Aberdeen in 1999. In 2002, with the reorganisation of the University into Schools and Colleges, Anthropology became a Department within the School of Social Science, part of the College of Arts and Social Sciences (CASS). In building a programme of anthropological research we have combined excellence in our specialist fields with a broader commitment to the comparative study of culture and social life. In RAE 2008, we presented our activity as having been concentrated in two complementary themes: Anthropology of the North and Culture, Creativity and Perception. This latter theme comprised two strands: respectively Histories of Material Culture and Creativity of Practice. Capitalising on developments in staffing since 2008, we now recognise these strands as distinct themes, and in 2010 we launched a fourth theme, on Religion, Belief and Practice.
Anthropology of the North
Aberdeen lies at the hub of a region that extends eastwards to the Nordic and Baltic countries and to northern Russia, and westwards to Iceland, Greenland, Canada and Alaska. Our objective has been to make the Department the principal centre for anthropological research in this region. Today, we have the largest concentration of anthropologists working in the circumpolar North within the UK and one of the largest internationally. Our current research centres on issues of: (1) sustainable development and resource co-management; (2) indigenous rights and governance; (3) movement, narrative and environmental perception; (4) dwelling, household organisation and residence; (5) oral tradition and cultural revitalisation; (6) transnational migration and diasporic communities in Scotland, Canada and Siberia, and (7) human-animal relations and histories of domestication.
Histories of Material Culture
Drawing on the resources of the University’s Marischal Museum, we are investigating how the histories of artefacts and of persons are conjoined in the creation and perception of material objects. This work is yielding innovative methodologies for the study of artefacts, along with new ways of thinking about museums in contemporary society. It has also led to international collaborations between anthropologists, historians, museum ethnographers, craftspeople and artists. We are interested in museum collections and their potential for education and building relationships with source communities, in the production, installation and effects of public art and sculpture, and in issues of intellectual property, inscription, and technological change.
Creativity of Practice
Our Creativity and Practice Research Group owes its foundation to a 2002-05 AHRB-funded project, culminating in the 2005 ASA Conference on Creativity and Cultural Improvisation. The Group’s work has since expanded to encompass the links between anthropology, art and architecture, with an emphasis on the formation of places, paths, landscapes and environments. We aim to establish an anthropological approach to creativity and perception that (1) brings together processes of making, observing and describing; (2) focuses on the circulations of materials entailed in the growth and dissolution of things; (3) explores the generative dynamics of improvisatory practice, and (4) considers the potential of a graphic anthropology, centred on drawing, which would reconnect observation and description. We are also pioneering the new field of Design Anthropology.
Religion, Belief and Practice
This newly developing theme focuses on four topics: (1) the continuing power and relevance of shamanistic cosmologies and practices for contemporary people; (2) the kinds of moral reasoning that people employ in coming to an understanding of their own selfhood; (3) the ways in which people are bound to the land through religious belief, ritual practice and cosmology, and (4) the relations between religious practice and the power of the state. Working with colleagues in Divinity and Religious Studies, we are seeking to forge a more symmetrical relation between anthropology and theology, which would acknowledge the ontological and ethical force of religious commitment in structuring our own anthropological inquiries. Our work in this theme is distributed in ethnographic fields as diverse as Uzbekistan, Tibet and Kamchatka.
The research environment outside the department.
Anthropology research at Aberdeen also benefits from collaboration with colleagues across the university. Besides those staff working in the Department of Anthropology, there are anthropologists working in other departments and units of the University, including Dr Will Tuladhar-Douglas in the School of Divinity, History and Philosophy, and Dr Trevor Stack in the School of Language & Literature. A cornerstone of our research environment are the resources of the University of Aberdeen’s museums and archival collections, which include internationally important ethnographic artefacts and documentary sources. The Department enjoys close research links with the Aberdeen Centre for Environmental Sustainability (ACES), the Elphinstone Institute, the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies, and other Departments in and beyond the College of Arts and Social Sciences, including Archaeology, Geography and Environment, Property, and Plant & Soil Science, and particularly the departments of History, Politics & International Relations (which includes the Nordic Policy Studies Centre), the School Language & Literature. The Aberdeen Northern Studies Centre began as part of the Aberdeen Research Consortium, which included the Macaulay Institute for Land Use Research and the former Centre for Ecology and Hydrology at Banchory. We are currently restructuring the Northern Studies Centre around growing collaboration between the Departments of Anthropology and Archaeology.
1.2 Areas of interest
The Department presently has 14 full-time staff, in addition to post-doctoral research fellows and over thirty doctoral students. We can offer research supervision in most areas of social anthropology, and our particular strengths are in the areas listed below. Some of these themes are ongoing projects that members of the Department of Anthropology are carrying out.
Anthropology of the North
Colonial histories and indigenous rights
Paths, roads and mobility
Home, hearth and household in the circumpolar North
Narrative, knowledge, time and memory
Environment
Environmental anthropology and nature conservation
Human-animal relations
Anthropological perspectives on energy
The perception of the environment
Creativity and Knowledge
Anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture
Craft, skill, improvisation and performance
Indigenous media, oral traditions and the making of culture
Knowledge production, creativity and intellectual property
Museums, collections and material histories
Design anthropology
Science, technology and medicine
Lines, drawing and inscription
Anthropology and dance
Religion, Politics and Practice
Ritual and politics in the contemporary world
Religion, belief and practice in Islam
Religion, state and landscape in Tibet
Ritual communication and shamanic cosmologies
Death, monuments and memorials
Social and Cultural Processes
Politics and the state
Post-socialist societies
Morality
Language, society and identity
Evolutionary theory
Phenomenological perspectives on place and landscape
Memory and forgetting
Regional Anthropology
The Circumpolar North
The Andes
Central Asia
Tibet
Scotland and Europe
1.3Links
The Postgraduate Programme is closely linked with:
- Aberdeen University’s Marischal Museum, offering considerable scope for research especially in the field of material culture studies. Although Marischal Museum is now closed to the public, its collections are accessible to researchers. King’s Museum has recently opened on campus to display items from the collections and changing exhibitions.
- The Aberdeen Centre for Environmental Sustainability, a cross-disciplinary environmental research centre working in partnership between the University of Aberdeen and the James Hutton Institute. By collaborating with academics and members of the policy, practitioner and business communities, it works to promote interest and engagement in interdisciplinary research on issues related to environmentally sustainability.
- A range of other Schools and Departments across the university, such as the School of Language and Literature, the Department of Archaeology, the School of Education, as well as Department of Anthropology’s home in the School of Social Science. Many staff across the university have skills and interests relevant to Anthropology, and often work in collaboration with us.
1.4The Department of Anthropology Seminar Series
Apart from courses and seminars for students, as detailed below, the Department of Anthropology organises a weekly staff and postgraduate seminar to which visiting speakers are invited, as well as occasional lectures by distinguished academic visitors. Full details of the seminar series can be accessed on the Department’s website. All M.Res. students are required to attend these events, and all other postgraduate students are strongly encouraged to attend.
Additional events are organised by the School of Social Science and the College of Arts and Social Sciences, including the College Postgraduate Conference which is run by students and is held in June of each year. For information on these and other events, students should regularly check their email, the website for the Graduate School ( and also consult the M.Res. notice board which is located in the corridor of the first floor of the Edward Wright Building, directly opposite the School of Social Science office.
1.5Postgraduate students’ research seminar
This research seminar is intended for post-fieldwork PhD students who are in the writing-up phase of the programme. It allows them to connect with fellow students and offer feedback on each other’s drafts of chapters. The programme of seminars should be organised by students and the PhD Programme Coordinator, Dr Nancy Wachowich, will serve as staff liaison. Pre-fieldwork research students may also attend, subject to the agreement of the post-fieldwork students.
THE MPhil AND PHD IN SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Qualifications for entry
Students with an undergraduate degree in anthropology or a cognate discipline normally commence their postgraduate studies with the one-year M.Res. programme in Social Anthropology. Having completed this programme, they can then transfer to the MPhil or the PhD. The conditions and procedures of transfer are explained below (see p.11). Details of the M.Res. are set out in the M. Res Programme Handbook.
However students who, prior to their admission, have already received appropriate research training in anthropology at a postgraduate level may proceed directly to the MPhil or PhD. Such students may nevertheless be advised to audit particular components of the M.Res. Programme, if this is considered appropriate to their training needs.
Application procedure
Applications should be made to the University’s Postgraduate Registry using the appropriate form (obtained from the University’s web site, see /postgraduate/apply.php). Applications are accepted at any time throughout the year. In order to be accepted to start the programme in the autumn, applications should be received by the end of the preceding April. In order to be considered for funding, applications must be received well before then.
Selection procedure
Applications are evaluated on the following criteria:
- Evidence of academic excellence, from transcripts and letters of reference, brief statement of research intentions (proposal) and writing sample.
- A research interest in an area in which we are able to offer adequate supervision
- Evidence that the applicant has either secured or applied for funding for their term of study
- If one or more of the above criteria are not fulfilled, applicants can also be given conditional offers (for example acceptance may be dependent on successful completion of a degree, improvement to the requisite level of language scores), or be offered an MRes and can apply for a subsequent PhD depending on their results.
Applicants are strongly advised, before submitting their applications, to consult the list of members of staff and their interests (see pp.24-28 of this Handbook). Further information on the research profiles of staff, and of the Department as a whole, is available on the Departmental website at It is inapplicants’ best interests that they initiate a dialogue with a potential supervisor, either by email or by visiting in person, prior to applying. This is especially important if the potential supervisor’s help and support are needed in any application for funding.
Duration
The duration of the MPhil programme is 24 months full-time, and that of the PhD course in 36 months full-time. Unless exempted by virtue of qualification or experience from the whole programme or from components of it, part-time students are expected to complete the same programme as full-time students. However the duration of part-time study is twice that for full-time study (minimally 42 months for the MPhil and 60 months for the PhD). In exceptional circumstances, it is possible for students to transfer, within the course of their studies, from full-time to part-time status or vice versa. The overall period of study is then calculated pro rata.
Term dates and attendance requirements
The academic year is divided into two half-sessions. The first half-session runs from the last Monday in September through the end of January (with a 3-week winter break for Christmas). The second half-session runs from February to the first week in June (with a 3-week spring break for Easter). Unless they have leave to study off campus (see below), and barring the winter and spring breaks, registered students are expected to be in present in Aberdeen throughout these periods. Students commencing their studies must be present in the University by the first day of teaching. They are strongly advised, however, to arrive one week prior to the start of the session.
Most doctoral students in social anthropology spend at least a year away from the University in order to undertake ethnographic fieldwork or related research. All such periods of absence have to be approved by the supervisor(s), Head of Department and College Postgraduate Officer. Permission to begin fieldwork is dependent upon satisfactory completion of a Research Project Proposal, either through completion of an MRes dissertation or a Ph.D. Research Proposal and successful End of First stageReview (see pp. 8-9). When not conducting fieldwork, postgraduate students are expected to be in residence at the University of Aberdeen, contributing to the intellectual life of the department.
Tier 4 Visa Holders
Students holding Tier 4 visas (that is, those from outside the European Union) must be aware of those UK Borders Agency regulations that apply to them, and abide by them. Breach of these regulations may result in the termination of your studies, deportation and the fining of the University. While the specifics of UKBA regulations change from time to time, three overarching principles generally apply, and we would ask you to abide by them carefully:
(i)Tier 4-holding students should co-operate with any class monitoring for your courses and inform the School should you need to miss any planned classes or meetings with university representatives – particularly those at the beginning of your studies. You may also be asked to sign periodically at the School Office.
(ii)Tier 4-holding students should inform the University (most usually, through the School of Social Science Office in Edward Wright Building) of their correct term-time address, and of their planned whereabouts should they leave Aberdeen. In case of departures of more than one week, please complete the School of Social Science Postgraduate Research Student Holiday/Off-Campus form and have your supervisor sign it.
(iii)Tier 4-holding students should be aware of their visa conditions regarding work outside studies (including tutoring) and abide by them.
(iv) Tier- 4 students should keep a record of all supervisory meetings.
Should you have any questions regarding the specifics of UKBA regulations, please ask at the School Office.
Induction
All new MPhil and PhD. students are expected to meet with their prospective supervisors during the first week of term. The purpose of this meeting is to make an initial assessment of the student’s training needs, to confirm any courses to be taken, to agree an overall schedule of work for the programme as a whole and, where two or more supervisors are involved, to determine the optimal division of supervisory functions between them. Our principles of supervisory practice are set out in more detail below (see pp. 11-12).
There will also be an induction programme for all new research postgraduates in the College of Arts and Social Sciences. The purpose of this event will be to introduce students to one another, to identify key people in the University who can offer help and support, and to provide an opportunity to meet existing students and learn about their experiences of research. Further details of this event will be circulated.
The MPhil programme
The MPhil is a 2-year programme of research, by the end of which candidates should be able to demonstrate an advanced level of knowledge and understanding in the field of Social Anthropology. The programme leads to the submission of a dissertation of up to 70,000 words, which should make a contribution to knowledge and afford evidence of originality and independence of approach. The dissertation is normally based on library research, drawing on secondary sources, though some element of first-hand fieldwork may also be entailed. It is not however based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork.