Department of Anthropology

About the Department

Profile

The Department of Anthropology was established in 1980 as the Department of Cultural Anthropology with just one teacher, late Prof. A.P. Sinha. It was in 1983 that it was renamed as the Department of Anthropology. The department was under the School of Social Sciences from 1981 to 1994. In the latter part of 1994, it was included in the School of Human and Environmental Sciences. In the last 26 years or so, it has grown into a full-fledged department with facilities for specialization in Social/Cultural and Physical/Biological streams and a broad orientation in other sub-disciplines like Prehistoric Archaeology, Palaeoanthropology and Linguistic Anthropology. The Verrier Elwin Memorial Museum was established in the Department in August 2002.

Aims and Objectives

During the last four decades, the department has been actively involved in teaching and research activities relating to the fields of ethnographic studies, gender, ethno medicine, population genetics, bio-demography, nutrition, human growth and development and social change. The department’s goal is to create an academic and research environment that is socially relevant and holistic in nature. The major objectives under this department’s goal are as follows:

• To promote and develop integrative thinking for consolidating anthropological teaching and research,
• To train and create expertise in identified thrust areas,
• To contribute to the betterment and well-being of society by carrying out  researches that are socially relevant, particularly in Northeast India,
• To develop partnership and collaboration locally, nationally and internationally, and
• To build world-class infrastructure facilities.

Thrust area

The success of the department in fulfilling the above objectives will be monitored and measured by the number and quality of publications, conference proceedings, linkages and collaborative initiatives established with other departments/organizations within and outside the university, especially in the following thrust areas:

• Ethnographic studies on diverse areas of human living, 
• Gender, identity, ethnicity, migration and diaspora, public policy, 
• Population genetics including DNA studies with special focus on phylogenetic relationship of human populations and other related health issues,
• Biocultural aspects of human growth and nutrition, reproductive and child health,
• Applied anthropology (including forensic anthropology),
• Cultural heritage of northeast India with special focus on archaeological reconstruction.

Former Head of Department of Anthropology

PhD Awardees Anthropology