Why Study Social Anthropology at LSE?
LSE is one of the top five universities in the UK for anthropology. We have been ranked first in the UK for Anthropology in the Complete University Guide 2027 and we are part of an institution recognised as The Times University of the Year 2026. But rankings only tell part of the story. What makes LSE anthropology distinctive is the combination of a reflexive self-critical engagement with our complex intellectual tradition, world-leading research, and a close-knit academic community in which students and faculty work together in an atmosphere of intellectual curiosity and mutual support.
Legacy of Innovation
LSE has been at the forefront of anthropology since the early 20th century, playing a central role in establishing ethnographic fieldwork as the discipline's defining research method. Bronisław Malinowski, one of the founding figures of modern anthropology, helped shape the discipline here, and many influential anthropologists have studied or taught at LSE since, shaping key debates and contributing to the department's global reputation.
We recognise that anthropology as a whole must reckon honestly with our discipline’s formative entanglement with colonialism. We therefore engage actively with the ongoing project of decolonising anthropology, questioning long-standing assumptions and widening the range of voices and perspectives represented in the field. Look through our Ancestors Wall to learn more.
World-Leading Research
Our faculty are internationally recognised for innovative and influential research. Their work spans an exceptionally broad range of topics—from childhood and migration to climate politics and post-carbon economies; from democracy and taxation to Christianity and kinship; from para-nationalism and political truths to experiences of wonder; from hypnosis and hypnotherapy to racism and justice in postcolonial contexts. This breadth reflects the department's commitment to pushing the boundaries of what anthropology can do and the questions it can ask.
The department consistently ranks highly in the UK's Research Excellence Framework (REF), a national assessment of research quality and impact. Learn more via our people and research pages.
Exceptional Teaching
Our faculty bring their research directly into the classroom, introducing students to cutting-edge scholarship across a broad range of topics and theoretical approaches. You'll benefit from small class sizes and close contact with senior academics, as well as individual support from your Academic Mentor—giving you the guidance and space to develop your own research interests and intellectual voice.
Ethnographic Training
Ethnographic fieldwork is at the heart of anthropology—it is the method that makes our discipline distinctive and our knowledge uniquely grounded in human experience. All our students, undergraduate and postgraduate, have opportunities to train in ethnographic methods and to conduct their own fieldwork on topics that genuinely matter to them.
Community
As part of LSE, you’ll be immersed in one of the most diverse and international student bodies in the world. You and your peers bring a wealth of perspectives, languages, and life experiences into the classroom.
We are a relatively small department, which means you'll have more direct contact with full-time faculty than at many comparable institutions, including other London universities. A strong mentoring system, regular departmental events, and an active student community make this a welcoming and intellectually stimulating place to study.
Student-led Initiatives
From student publications to collaborative projects and societies, there are many opportunities to get involved in the intellectual and social life of the department and the wider School.
Fatima Ali
"My time at the LSE has been ‘eye opening’. I put this down to studying Anthropology and learning from some of the world’s best experts in their fields, along with other curious students.
Anthropology is about thinking outside the box, it challenges individuals to understand how and why other human beings live life a certain way. But it doesn’t stop there. As an Anthropology student I was faced with innovative theories that are open to debate, which the department actively encouraged me to take a central role in. The department held weekly public lectures, where you were invited to openly ask questions. However, the most fulfilling learning experience for me was the small classes, because I was being taught by the very people who had already spent several years studying and writing about the people I was studying.
Throughout the years I developed multiple transferable skills, which are invaluable for a diverse range of careers. When thinking about life after the LSE the career possibilities were endless: I looked into journalism, development work and the legal profession. This is one of the key advantages of studying a course that equips students with creative thinking skills and develops them as an individual."
Rosalie Allain
"Before starting the course I kept reading/hearing anthropologists say that when you finish a degree in Anthropology, you will never see the world in the same way again. And it’s actually true. It is very hard to stress how invaluable this discipline is. Applying to study Anthropology was undoubtedly the best decision of my life.
I felt the warmth of the department from day one – it was quite obvious that the teachers were excited to have us there. The department really values its undergraduate students. Then followed the tutorial system: meeting our tutors in groups of three, every three weeks during the whole degree, offered a very calming, informal and enriching intellectual stepping stone between topics. Writing two to three tutorial essays a term for our tutors was invaluable: it helped me perfect my essay writing (analytic, thinking skills), which was a great practice for our assessed essays, but also meant we had at least three weeks/topics per term which we had mastered by being forced to think in depth about it. From year one we were encouraged to seek out our teachers via email or office hours, something I did with enthusiasm, and found unlimited advice (personal and academic) and a humbling level of intellectual sharing/generosity on behalf of the teachers.
Anthropology engages the mind, more than any other social science. Its study requires and engenders a huge level of critical inquiry, in line with its own tradition of self-criticism, which promotes a rigorous kind of 'disciplinary self-awareness' which in turn means anthropologists rarely hide from all the crucial epistemological power/knowledge implications of being an academic discipline. And yet it remains a very imaginative, experimental, playful and (for me, magical) space which can only aid intellectual inquiry.
This hybridity enables Anthropology’s holism. And again, although Anthropology is often relegated (by other social scientists) to the periphery of the social sciences, I see it as the centre, drawing on and looking at (and combining) the psychological, the historical, the economic, the political, and the philosophical of the human condition."
Edward Cubitt
"In a world obsessed with money, power, oil and numbers, to have at my fingertips a community of people who are motivated out of a genuine desire to learn and understand for the sake of knowledge and tolerance, and to make the world a better and more just place..... That is a pleasure no amount of words can express. When I came to the Anthropology department at LSE, I truly felt like I was coming home after a long walk out in the cold."