Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)

Develop your personal research project

Do you feel engaged with a particular group of people or society? Do you have a socially relevant question in mind which you want to explore? The Master’s programme in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology enables you to develop a research on a topic of personal preference. Possible topics vary from the fate of LGBT refugees to initiatives of global sustainable tourism, from water management in African gold mines to digitalisation of heritage in Holland, from kickboxing Muslimas to storytelling in the Caribbean.

Theory and practice

Thorough coursework and intensive coaching by individual supervisors helps to develop your research. In order to select and organize your field site, this programme provides access to extensive research networks of our staff members. Our master’s programme offers you also the possibility to join staff members into their own research specialities. The combination of in-depth courses and your individual ethnographic fieldwork enables you to learn how to enter, participate in, understand and report on particular ways of living among different social communities. You acquire valuable skills for in and outside academia, including cultural awareness, analytical, critical and problem-solving skills.

Three unique specialisations

• Global Ethnography provides you with the opportunity to develop and conduct an individualized research project at a location of your choice;
   
• Sociology of Policy in Practice teaches you to think along with organizations to help them respond to the challenges they are facing in our quickly changing societies;
  
   
• Visual Ethnography offers expanded training in how to use audio-visual methods for producing contemporary anthropological research. 

Prospective students have to indicate which Master specialisation they would like to enroll for. Changing between the master specialisations Global Ethnography and Sociology of Policy in Practice will still be possible until (shortly) after the commencement of the programme. Please note that the VE specialisation is only accessible for students who meet the additional requirements.

Impressions of the field