Guarded behaviour
The Department of Social Anthropology at Cambridge is a leading centre of the subject in Britain. Many of the UK's best known anthropologists were educated here. The Department focuses on innovative frontline research.
The Department has a cosmopolitan body of teaching staff, each one at the forefront of their field. Their research ranges across the world (Britain, India, Vietnam, Russia, Mongolia, Melanesia, West and East Africa, Indonesia, North America, and Latin America) and focuses on diverse research topics. Themes of current research in the Department include:
new forms of kinship and family reproduction;
bioethics;
the social implications of technology (broadband, nanotechnology, etc);
shamanism and medicinal plants;
new religious movements;
the political and economic transformations of post-socialist societies;
new legal forms and institutions;
cultural creativity; and
artefact-based theory.