Anthropology

Anthropology at Laurier is a unique program in Canada. It specializes in researching and teaching the ethnography of the contemporary world.


The 2016/17 academic has brought with it our brand new curriculum, with fun new courses, streamlined requirements, and opportunities to do fieldwork here in Kitchener-Waterloo. 
First-year students interested in Anthropology can take AN100: Cultures Today (a general introduction to cultural practices around the world and to important research and life skills, such as inter-cultural competency), and/or AN110: Money Makes the World Go Round (which focuses on the cultural worlds of exchange and consumption by looking at how and why people acquire things like Lamborgini cars, Chanel suits and high-end coffee).

In senior courses, this year students are able to focus on topics as diverse as Aboriginal Peoples of Canada; Contemporary Issues in India; Cross-Cultural Studies of Change; City Life and Urban Space; Culture as Performance; Africa at the Crossroads; Law, Culture and Society; Life after Socialism; Science, Technology and Culture; and the Anthropology of the Body. They will also learn core disciplinary skills by engaging in participant-observation and in-depth interviews in our two new core courses, AN300: Ethnographic Methods, and AN400: Doing Fieldwork. The latter is our program’s capstone course where students get to pursue their very own ethnographic fieldwork research!

Intercultural Understanding Option

All honour students (Anthropology and non-Anthropology majors) can enrol in the Intercultural Understanding Option.