Research

RESEARCH AGENDA

The faculty of the Department of Anthropology engage in various researches within the
scope of the discipline’s four fields – Social or Cultural Anthropology, Biological Anthropology,
Archaeology, and Linguistic Anthropology – as well as on special topics that engage
methodologies and approaches from other disciplines. These researches are in line with the
Department’s mission statement, which calls for inter-disciplinary research – both basic and
applied – that contributes “to the resolution of relevant social issues”. The following are the
research agenda of the faculty of the Department.

1. Biological Anthropology 

● Anthropology of Healthcare
● Genetics and Culture
● Forensic Anthropology
● Anthropology of Aging
● Anthropology of the Body and the Senses
● Anthropology of drugs, pharmaceuticals, and other chemicals
● Traditional medicine
● Anthropology of mental health
● Cultural Ecology of Health
● Embodied Ecologies
● Multispecies Ethnography and Conviviality
● Medical Anthropology 
● Pharmaceutical anthropology 

2. Linguistic Anthropology 

● Language acquisition
● Linguistic forms, local classification systems and worldviews 
● Linguistic acts, genres and communities
● Power, identity, and language use
● Language change
● Filipino Sign Language (FSL)
Anthropological studies of and on Filipino sign language and deaf communities.
● Linguistic diversity and linguistic imperialism
● Discourse studies in politics, media, academia (including research), religion, popular
culture and other fields of social life
● Linguistic approaches to the study of expressive traditions (‘music’, ‘dance’, etc.)
● Study of ‘speech genres’ and ‘speech events’

3. Social Anthropology 

● Anthropology of Religion  ● Religion and the public
● Anthropology of Disaster
● Anthropology of Arts
● Anthropology of Sports
● Anthropology of Human Movement
● Anthropology of Performance
● Political Anthropology
● Pop Culture and Media
● Urban Anthropology
● Ethnohistory and Social Memory
● History of Anthropology and Historical Anthropology
● Anthropology of Death
● Cultural studies of Filipinos in Diaspora
● Urbanization and Migration
● Genders and Sexualities
● Human Security
● Media Anthropology
● Economic and Ecological Anthropology
● Anthropology of Development

4. Anthropological Archaeology 
● Ethnoarchaeology
● Zooarchaeology
● Archaeology of coastal communities
● Ceramic analysis
● Material culture studies
● Indigenous and community archaeology
● Multispecies archaeology

5. Heritage Studies
● Documentation, conservation, promotion, and protection of heritage sites and
heritage collections
● Museology
● Material Culture
● Performances of heritage
● Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH)

6. Area Studies and Special Topics 
● Folklore Studies
● Folklore and the public
● Anthropology and Human Rights
● Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Practices
● Philippine and Southeast and East Asia regional studies
● Public policies
● Social Impact Assessment
● Mining Communities
● Disaster Risk Reduction
● Climate Change
● Globalization
● Human Rights
● Indigenous Peoples Issues
● BangsaMoro issues
● Education and Anthropology