Medical Anthropology MSc

UCL (University College London)

Join a cohort of clinicians, anthropologists and social scientists exploring themes across disease, health and medicine on this dual pathway training in interpretive, critical, clinical and biosocial approaches to medical anthropology. With a grounding in both theoretical and applied aspects of the field, you’ll be equipped for a wide range of careers that engage with and impact pressing and profound real-world issues – across academia, clinical services, social services, government or NGOs. The Medical Anthropology MSc takes a broad, dynamic approach—bridging theory and practice across a wide spectrum of topics including global and public health, infectious and chronic diseases, mental health, ritual and sensory healing, reproductive health, climate change, and even space medicine. We explore how culture, biology, and environment intersect to shape human health and healing. The programme offers two distinct pathways, tailored to different interests and career goals: The Medical Anthropology Pathway is for those who want exposure to ethnographic and qualitative methods used by Medical Anthropologists to understand the social, cultural, political, economic, material and affective underpinnings of health, illness, medicine and healing systems in different contexts, such as clinical/hospital ethnography, sensory anthropology, and Participatory-Action-Research. Students will be encouraged to analyse the ways in which anthropological data are gathered through ethnographic methods and consider the relationship between theory, methods and ethnography in the works they are reading as well as gain practical skills in ethnographic reading and writing in the process. The Biosocial Approaches Pathway combines insights and approaches from medical/social anthropology, evolutionary/biological anthropology, and human ecology to explore the intimate entanglement between social and biological factors in human disease, health and medicine. Students will be introduced to a range of qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods methods used by Biosocial Medical Anthropologists to understand the way the biological and social are defined, interact and impact health and wellbeing. Students will be encouraged to consider the relationship between theory, methods and writing, gaining practical skills in ethnographic reading and writing in the process. You will join a rich and welcoming research community and benefit from research-embedded teaching. The Medical Anthropology MSc appeals to a wide and diverse cohort. Students come from a range of backgrounds; while some have anthropological training, others do not. The degree provides in-depth anthropological training for those wishing to progress to a PhD and for those who want to employ anthropological techniques in their professional work. As well as students with different academic backgrounds, we recruit a mix of social scientists, health workers, and professional practitioners, finding that the interaction between these student groups helps create an exciting and vibrant cohort.