Media, Visual and Material Culture

Specialisation of: Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology
Degree: Master of Arts in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology
Mode of Study: Full-time
Duration: 1 year
Start date: September, February
Language of instruction: English
Location: Leiden
Croho/isat code: 60156
Share |

We are interested in the ways in which images, sounds, objects, and more abstract forms of ‘information’ circulate and shape perception and experience.

This specialisation brings together subfields such as the Anthropology of Media, Visual Anthropology and Material Culture studies. It explores questions regarding the circulation of media, objects and technologies, the economic and political infrastructures and conditions thereof, their inflection within everyday life worlds, and the ideological understandings of diverse forms and processes that turn them into one thing in one place and something different in another. We are interested in the ways in which images, sounds, objects, and more abstract forms of ‘information’ circulate and shape perception and experience.

How do media form part and parcel of social movements and cultural and political practice, including that of today’s heritage politics? What role do new, allegedly democratizing, media technologies play in providing access to some while excluding others? What kind of ‘worlds’ are conjured via commodity displays in malls, museums and on internet sites? Of interest, too, are the publics called forth by diverse mediations as well as the constraints—ideological, cultural, political, economic, financial, governmental, technological—that contour the possibilities and effects of such forms in particular places and times.

It is also possible to complete ‘Media, Visual and Material Culture’ by means of a specialisation in museum studies in collaboration with the Museum of Ethnology and the Museum of Antiquities in Leiden. (This track can only be followed if one starts with the programme in September).

Prof. Peter Pels

“Students carry out individual research for three months into the subject that fascinates them. This is carried out under the supervision of researchers of our institute.”

“Our master’s programme in Cultural Anthropology and Develop¬ment Sociology is first and foremost a disciplinary programme. After an introduction at the MA-level of the theory and practice of ethnography (or how to do research about large and important issues in small places), students can choose between three specializations: Environmental Anthropology and Development Sociology, Global Economy and Culture, and Media, Visual and Material Culture. ‘Global Economy and Culture’ is the most general of the three, and deals predominantly with the small-scale manifestations of large-scale institutions such as global markets, nation-states and international organizations, and global processes of trade and production. ‘Media, Visual and Material Culture’ combines visual anthropology and material culture studies, and allows students a choice between visual anthropology more generally, and a museum-track in collaboration with the Museum of Ethnology and the Museum of Antiquities in Leiden. ‘Environmental Anthropology and Development Sociology’, finally, concentrates on environmental anthropology and the sociology and anthropology of development.

All three specializations can be combined with ethnographic film, on condition of proper BA-level preparation and starting with the programme in September.

Studying culture in the street requires thorough and intimate knowledge of specific world areas. Leiden has long specialized in Southeast Asia en Africa, although staff members (often with the help of area studies colleagues in other parts of Leiden University) also supervise research in other parts of the world. It is this intimate involvement with specific cultural regions that gives our programme its excellent international reputation. Practical field research is one of the pillars of both our bachelor and our master programmes. In the latter, we pride ourselves on the fact that we have been able to perfect our curricular activities and individual supervision to make sure that students finish the programme within a year with an academic product of high quality.”