The distinctive research aims and profile of the Department reflect its long-standing commitment to a broad-based conception of Anthropology, combining the perspective and paradigms of
The dynamism of our research agenda is reflected also in our thematically-led Research Platforms. Spanning across paradigms both within anthropology and beyond it on a trans-disciplinary basis, these represent the distinctive strands of research that are presently being pursued within UCL Anthropology's vibrant research community.
For departmental research seminars, workshops and conferences, visit News and Events page.
Research Platforms
The Centre for Digital Anthropology aims to be the leading research hub which locates digital technologies in the rich context of human society and culture. Through teaching, research and a dynamic series of regular events, we encourage a global perspective on the development, structures, and practices of digital technologies… Full description
Our research platform on Subjectivity and Cultural Imagination (SCI) brings together anthropologists working on the role of the imagination in diverse social and cultural scales. Using ethnographically-based insights, we seek to refigure the ways in which we, as social scientists, imagine the social and cultural world, and ultimately to extend the anthropological imagination itself... Full description
The Laboratory for the Ethnography of the UK (LabUK) provides a home for versatile ethnographic research, exploring through an anthropological lens cultural, political, ethnic, medical, visual and material aspects of living in Britain. Taking Britain as a subject of ethnographic enquiry, we seek to bring anthropological insight into broader public debates about contemporary British society and culture and their future… Full description
The Evolutionary Anthropology (EVA) research platform conducts innovative research into the core themes "Human Evolutionary Ecology", "Paleoanthropology and Comparative Anatomy", and "Primate Socioecology and Conservation"... Full description
Environmental Anthropology
All of humanity is facing unprecedented environmental crises, but there are immense inequalities both in who bears responsibility for creating those crises, and in who bears the burden of their impacts. Environmental Anthropology brings together and integrates social and natural sciences approaches to environment and development. It incorporates two main groups: the Human Ecology Research Group (HERG), and the Centre for Anthropology of Sustainability (CAOS).
The Human Ecology Research Group focuses, on the one hand, on the impact of resource policy and management on people’s livelihoods, health and wellbeing, and on the other, on the impacts of changing resource use on the environment and biodiversity. Our research group uses the human ecological perspective, which emphasises interdisciplinarity to develop new understandings and narratives of people’s interactions with the natural environment and the impact of human activities on nature. We have a particular interest in developing methodologies for mixed methods, co-produced research on issues related to human-environment and multispecies relations.
The concept of sustainability as the product of concern about global environmental degradation, rising social inequalities and dispossession is the key concept of our times, albeit a contested one. The Centre for the Anthropology of Sustainability(CAOS) is a research centre that draws together a wide range of work of international excellence on questions related to the notion of social and environmental sustainability...Full description
The Subjectivities and Bio-socialities of Illness & Health research platform reflects the broad scope of research, teaching, and learning in the department related to concepts of health, the body, illness and 'well-being' and with the way that a diverse range of healing practices, including biomedical knowledge or technologies, are diversely defined and constituted. Collectively this research is both concerned with the ways in which... Full description
The Material Worlds research platform explores the theoretical dimensions of material, visual, and design culture. We critically examine the ways in which the material world has social and cultural significance, through examining social phenomena such as objects, images, materials, technologies, built forms, and places... Full description
Research/Reading Groups
Our approximately 100 research students form a vital part of the intellectual life of the Anthropology Department at UCL. In addition to their relationship to individual supervisors, and as well as attending one or more of the Department's five weekly research seminars, research students are expected to participate in regular Reading and Research Groups (RRGs). Bringing students and staff together to exchange ideas on themes of mutual interest, our RRGs draw their membership from all parts of the Department, as well as welcoming participants from other UCL Departments and other London Colleges.
Working Papers
The UCL Anthropology Working Papers Series demonstrates the full range of research carried out in the Department of Anthropology at UCL. It includes working papers by academic staff, post-docs and research students, as well as revised versions of the best dissertations produced by our undergraduate students and students on our taught Masters' courses.