Film Studies and Social Anthropology

Film studies and social anthropology is a combination that is especially well suited to SOAS, where the study of global film cultures meets the anthropological study of human societies across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and beyond. Film studies uses critical, theoretical, and historical approaches to examine how films produce meaning and how cinema, as a global phenomenon, reflects and shapes social life in different cultural contexts. Social anthropology investigates the diversity of human societies and practices, developing frameworks for understanding beliefs, rituals, social organisation, material culture, and how people make sense of their worlds.

At the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, this three-year full-time programme draws on SOAS's distinctive expertise to offer a perspective on both disciplines that is genuinely global rather than implicitly Western. You will encounter film traditions from many parts of the world alongside ethnographic and theoretical approaches to understanding human diversity, and you will develop the ability to move between visual analysis and anthropological inquiry with genuine critical fluency. The programme includes a foundation year, which provides a structured and supported entry route for students who need additional preparation before the main degree.

The combination of film analysis and anthropological thinking is particularly powerful for anyone interested in how cultural identity is represented and negotiated in screen media, how cinema participates in global circuits of meaning-making, or how visual culture intersects with the social realities that anthropologists study. Graduates go on to careers in cultural journalism, broadcasting, international development, heritage, education, film programming, arts administration, and academic research. Further study at postgraduate level in film studies, social anthropology, or cultural studies is a natural route for those who wish to develop specialist expertise.