Anthropology is the study of cultural differences and similarities in a globalised world. As a field of study anthropology is uniquely placed to interpret the widest range of contemporary social phenomena — from migration to religious fundamentalism, online communities and new social movements, contemporary indigenous cultural expression and identity politics, consumption and commodification, and many changing forms of social relationships.

The School of Archaeology and Anthropology offers a diverse range of undergraduate courses which cover these themes and more.

The discipline’s distinctive methodology, long-term ethnographic fieldwork, provides anthropologists with finely grained and in-depth understandings of complex social phenomena. With a commitment to a comparative framework, anthropologists’ treatment of cultural diversity provides insights into the different ways people comprehend their place in the world and relationships to each other, as well as new ways for us to think about our own relationships and society. It is an ideal foundation for a contemporary liberal-arts education. Students of non-English languages can find anthropology especially useful. 

Anthropologists in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology are actively engaged in research and teaching across areas including Indigenous-State relations in Australia; representations of Islam; transnational and diasporic studies; consumption; multiculturalism; kinship; post-agrarianism; ethnographic film and visual media; visual cultural production; development; medical anthropology and embodiment; gender and sexuality; marine tenure; religion; violence and terror; conceptions of culture and society. Teaching staff have area expertise in diverse geographic regions including Australia, Indonesia and South East Asia, the Pacific and Melanesia, Germany, and India.

Find out more about Anthropologists in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Find out more about Major Anthropology research projects.

Find out more about the Master of Anthropology.

Find out more about the Centre for Native Title Anthropology.