Social Cultural

Social-cultural anthropology traditionally dealt with kinship, political economy and other social dimensions of non-literate, non-western and often isolated communities, which could be observed in their totality. Today, many social anthropologists also study "western" culture and such aspects of complex societies as gender, sexuality, peasantry, ethnic minorities, and industrial work groups.

: Professor Janice Boddy talks with a friend while conducting research in Sudan

Social-cultural anthropology at the University of Toronto has a critical mass of more than a dozen tenured and tenure-stream faculty, which enables us to offer graduate students a rich array of graduate courses and good support from supervisory committees. As the name “socio-cultural” suggests, our faculty blend approaches from the British school of social anthropology and American cultural anthropology, coming together in a strong emphasis on the importance of sustained fieldwork as a critical element in graduate training. We have faculty who work in the major geographic areas (Latin America, Africa, Europe, North America, Asia, Pacific). Our students are able to draw on the extraordinary resources of a major university (one of the largest in North America), a cosmopolitan city, and a lively set of interdisciplinary programs such as Gender and Transnational Studies, Diaspora Studies, Native Studies, Development Studies, Education and various Area-studies programs, several of which have socio-cultural anthropologists on their faculty cross-appointed with Anthropology. Graduate students select courses in consultation with their committees, and have scope to devise programs of study that suit their individual interests, while benefiting from the experience of being part of a significant graduate cohort.

Social-Cultural Anthropology Faculty

Associate Graduate Faculty (identified as Associate Member on the Graduate Faculty list) are Contractual Appointments and can advise Master's Graduate Students only. They cannot supervise Ph.D. graduate students. Professors Emeriti, Cross Appointments and Anthropologists in Other Departments (i.e. Status Appointments, Adjunct Faculty) may sit on graduate student committees, but they cannot supervise graduate students.

Sandra Bamford Pacific (Melanesia)

Joshua Barker Asia (Indonesia)

Janice Boddy Africa (Sudan)

Dylan Clark North America

Francis Cody Asia (South Asia)

Hilary Cunningham North America (USA)

Girish Daswani Africa (Ghana), Europe (UK)

Naisargi N. Dave Asia (India)

Andrew Gilbert Europe (Bosnia-Herzegovina, ex-Yugoslavia)

Michael Lambek Africa (Madagascar), Europe (Switzerland)

Michael Levin Africa (West Africa), North America (Canada)

Tania Li Asia (Indonesia, Southeast Asia)