One of the highlights of doing our master's programme is the opportunity to follow your own research project in which you combine the experience of doing a detailed and extended research project with the development of important skill-sets.

Every student who wants to apply for the bachelor’s programme in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University will need to start at Studielink. The application procedure consists of three steps.

The master's specialisation in Global Ethnography is all about your three-month ethnographic research project. Experienced scholars teach you in extensive courses and by individual supervision how to get to most of your research.

Academic staff and students blog about their research and teaching.

An interdisciplinary study of the Persian Period

Research on Inclusiveness and Diversity at the Faculty of Science at Leiden University

Both within the university and also with outside partners, Leiden University participates in sustainability programmes. These initiatives hopefully contribute to a growing and more robust sustainability movement, locally and world wide.

How do social and political developments influence the process of meaning-making in different parts of the world? Why is a particular discourse interpreted in numerous ways depending on the context it is produced and propagated? And how are culture, politics, history, and language intertwined?

To what extent does the Law Ombudsperson for Children achieve its goals as intended by the legislator when introducing the law?

Andrea Giolai defended his thesis on 3 May 2017.

Published on 26 February 2021.

Special Issue in: Visual Anthropology, Volume 29, Issue 3, 2016

The Laboratory for Human Osteoarchaeology specialises in the macroscopic and microscopic analysis of human remains. We use cutting edge scientific approaches to address archaeological, historical, and anthropological research questions. In addition to paleopathological, histological, and 3D scanning…

Disciplinary History and Epistemology

The main aim of this research is to understand the dynamics of identity within indigenous Caribbean communities as expressed through the practice of intentional cranial modification. A multidisciplinary approach will be applied to achieve this aim, combining current anthropological and sociological…

On 12 January 2023 ms. Nor Ismah successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Inspired by a critical reconsideration of current monolithic approaches to the study of Greek religion, this book argues that ancient Greeks displayed a disquieting capacity to validate two (or more) dissonant, if not contradictory, representations of the divine world in a complementary rather than…

This dissertation provides an up to date description of the Indo European lexical stock of Armenian (ca. 500 entries) with systematic inclusion of unused data that are found in Armenian dialects.

All research performed in the Leiden University Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences is ethically reviewed by 1 of 3 ethical review committees.

This research aims to study the practice of cremation in Alexandria and Graeco-Roman Egypt, through the examination of its cinerary urns.

Part of ‘Moralising Misfortune: A comparative anthropology of commercial insurance’, an ERC Consolidator project of Erik Bähre.

The VVI seeks to develop and disseminate socio-legal knowledge and theory regarding the interaction between law, governance and society. More specifically, the Institute studies the emergence, functioning, and evolution of legal institutions.

Central to the research of several cluster members are the social function and contexts of the production and consumption of medieval and early modern art, literature and media:

Fostering multi-polar perspectives that engage more connected, nuanced and pluralistic understandings of the world. Global Interactions encourages and supports research that provides significant new insights on these global processes across time and space.

How are social structures of gender, religion and race/ethnicity learned and embodied in practices of movement?

Part of ‘Moralising Misfortune: A Comparative Anthropology of Commercial Insurance’, an ERC Consolidator project of Erik Bähre.

Part of ‘Moralising Misfortune: A Comparative Anthropology of Commercial Insurance’, an ERC Consolidator project of Erik Bähre.

The Cinematic Santri explores the rise and course over the last ten years of cinematic practices among a younger generation of NU associates (Nahdlatul Ulama), the largest traditionalist Muslim group in Indonesia and elsewhere.

Irna Hofman defended her thesis on 10 January 2019.

Leiden University research institutes based in Leiden and The Hague.

Presenting case studies by both senior and emerging scholars, it makes mandatory reading for anyone interested in the challenges of governance, citizenship and development faced by the people of India’s North East.

Museum Studies looks at museum practices from archaeological, historical and anthropological perspectives.

Part of ‘Moralising Misfortune: A Comparative Anthropology of Commercial Insurance’, an ERC Consolidator project of Erik Bähre.

Punching Back is a detailed ethnographic study that demonstrates that young Muslim women who kickbox develop agentive selves by challenging gender norms, challenging expectations, and living out their religious subjectivities.

Migration is the talk of the town. On the whole, however, the current situation is seen as resulting from unique political upheavals. Such a-historical interpretations ignore the fact that migration is a fundamental phenomenon in human societies from the beginning and plays a crucial role in the cultural,…

Both on a personal and institutional level, the staff of Leiden CADS collaborates with:

Perfect for use at advanced undergraduate and graduate level, this is the first text to offer students a unified narrative regarding the place of the body in Western thinking. The book investigates the ways in which the fact of human embodiment makes the notion of ambiguity central to all major areas…

Irene Moretti published the article Kin Enough in Social Analysis, The International Journal of Anthropology.

Une étude archéo-anthropologique de la céramique des sociétés caribéennes multiculturelles de la période précoloniale à nos jours

This edited book presents case-studies and reflections on the role of languages and their analytic study in development practices across four regions: Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Pacific.

Un)timely Crises explores how ‘crisis’—as a narrative, concept, grammar, and experience—structures time and space. This collectively written volume extends Bakhtin’s ‘chronotope’ to challenge mobilizations of crisis within neoliberal governmentality. The book explores how contemporary crises can trigger…

In this article, Samuels focuses on the active fostering of subjunctivity in processes of narrative worldmaking. Drawing extensively from the narrative of an HIV‐positive woman in Indonesia, she shows that by subjunctively leaving open multiple narrative trajectories and future possibilities, individuals…

The Leiden University-European Center for Chinese Medicine and Natural Compounds (LUECCM) is a virtual research Centre bringing together research projects of many different researchers from different origin.

The Mid Upper Palaeolithic of Eurasia 30,000 - 20,000 BP

Museums and collections are often frontpage news nowadays. The collections stored and curated in museums, universities and private institutions are no longer seen as 'neutral' entities to be enjoyed without political connotations.

LUCIR aims to bundle together, strengthen and disseminate existing research in the field of international relations.

The civilizations of ancient China and Mesoamerica, although not historically related and obviously different in many specific aspects (such as language and writing), show many interesting commonalities and similar tendencies in their cultural manifestations.

At LUCL we study almost all aspects of a wide range of African languages. From phonology to anthropological linguistics, from theoretical syntax to urban youth languages, we study it all.

Over time Dutch and Indonesian composers, performers and music scholars have inspired each other and they continue to do so. The presence of the Dutch in the Netherlands East-Indies and Indonesia, but also the existence of large diasporic communities in the Netherlands have contributed to a mutual exchange…

The Historia Naturalis Brasiliae Reconsidered