Anthropology of Religion and Culture

In a world of religious and cultural diversity, understanding cultural differences is key to addressing challenges like migration and climate change. This MA trains you to study various lifeworlds in all their complexity. You will explore how religion and culture shape societies, and how everyday practices - from food to sexuality and religion - are embedded in broader cultural contexts. In doing so, you not only gain deeper insight into others, but also into yourself.

This programme in the anthropology of religion is unique in the Netherlands, and it is characterised by its holistic, comparative and ethnographic approach:

What if you could see the world from different perspectives? What can we learn from cultural differences? How can these insights contribute to understanding local, regional and global challenges?

• Holistic: it investigates themes as they are embedded within the totality of local lifeworlds.
• Comparative: you trace and understand similarities and differences across cultures.
• Ethnographic: through fieldwork you get insight into the complex worlds of the people living them. The ethnographic hands-on experience is an integral part of the programme.

You also critically reflect on the 'traditional' anthropological method itself (i.e. from 'global north' to 'global south').

Anthropology challenges you by making the strange familiar, and the familiar strange.