University of Sydney / Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences / Department of Anthropology / Anthropology / Research Overview 2012

Anthropology
Postgraduate Research 2012 Overview

Anthropology is the study of the rich and diverse societies and cultures that contribute to a global world. Its focus on both sameness and difference links it to those branches of philosophy that analyse what it is to be human. The view from Anthropology is that human beings interpret a material world through their social relations, and through their capacity to think imaginatively - to see the world in different ways. Comparative studies in society and culture, the familiar and the strange, reveal the way in which different groups - from local communities to nations states - define themselves and influence others. The discipline stands at the crossroads of social science and the humanities. Anthropology shares much of its theory and method with Sociology and Cultural Studies, but remains distinct in its emphasis on fieldwork and comparison.

Anthropology allows students to adopt discerning views on major issues in the world today. Once a study of small-scale societies, Anthropology now involves mainly the analysis of modern nation states and trans-national relations. This includes diverse ethnic and religious conflicts, gender relations in cultural context, migration, globalisation, and the importance of indigenous peoples in national and international politics.

The department's research expertise lies in Aboriginal anthropology, east Asian anthropology and comparative cultural anthropologies. Current research strengths in the department include studies of cultural difference, issues of social justice and social inequality, migration, globalisation, development studies, racism and race relations, multiculturalism from a comparative perspective, poverty and health, and ethnographic studies.

In 1931, the department of Anthropology's Professor AP Elkin, famous for his studies of Australian Aborigines, founded the now renowned journal Oceania. It is a fully refereed journal published online and in print versions three times a year, publishing contributions in the field of social and cultural anthropology. Its primary regional orientation is to the peoples of Australia, Melanesia, Polynesia, Micronesia and insular Southeast Asia. The central concern of the journal lies with papers that are the product of sustained ethnographic research.

For more information go to www.arts.usyd.edu.au/departs/anthro

 Student Profile:

Thiago Oppermann
In what will form a PhD thesis based on political implications of development, Thiago spent 15 months doing fieldwork in Papua New Guinea. During this time, he also learnt to speak Tok Pisin (Pidgin), PNG's lingua franca, and the local language.

Thiago hopes his research will show fairly conclusively that there are many different paths to development. 'Many of these paths are developed by Papua New Guineans themselves, from their own cultural intellectual and social resources.' Most importantly Thiago wants to underline that there is a reservoir of knowledge and social capacity that is perhaps being neglected.

Born in Brazil, Thiago completed a Bachelor of Arts at the Australian National University with honours in Anthropology before coming to Sydney.

'Studying at the University of Sydney has opened my eyes to the flexible means anthropology has for studying the human condition. There are other PhD students studying the rave culture in Sydney as well as Aboriginal societies in Western Sydney and the outback.'

'What attracted me to the University of Sydney is the concentration of good scholars working on Papua New Guinea in the Department of Anthropology. You are guaranteed to have an interesting conversation if you walk into one of the offices in the department. The University also has excellent facilitation for fieldwork.'