Master of Cultural Anthropology and Development Studies
Leuven, Belgium
DURATION
1 Years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time, Part time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
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EARLIEST START DATE
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TUITION FEES
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STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
Introduction
The Master of Cultural Anthropology and Development Studies (CADES) is a unique and international advanced Master's program that provides a broad interdisciplinary platform to address development issues and social transformations from an anthropological perspective. The program brings together students and professionals from all over the world who are involved or interested in social, educational, emancipatory, or policy work in the development, or, more broadly, the social sector.
The advanced Master of Cultural Anthropology and Development Studies (CADES) draws on anthropology's unique vantage point to enhance students’ intercultural expertise, understanding, and skills. Based on cutting-edge research conducted at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, the program counters the universalizing Western master narrative of modernization and promotes an integrated approach to development issues, transnational solidarity, and social change. In taking this tack, rather than offering a ready-made toolkit, CADES explores the bigger questions underlying current development practices.
More specifically, CADES seeks to demonstrate how local actors resist and/or respond to the omnipresent forces of economic globalization and social change. Only a profound intercultural understanding of, and engagement with, development can open up innovative avenues towards equality. It is for this reason that the program addresses a wealth of topics ranging from the history of development (theory) to contemporary debates on social exclusion, ecology, and climate change in the Anthropocene, urbanization, migration and mobility, social transformation, solidarity, global policy, and many others.
The program will offer you concepts and a theoretical framework embedded in anthropology to acquire a better grasp of the complexity of international development. You will also learn how to translate aspects of this complexity into research questions and appropriate research methods. Designing individual ethnographic fieldwork in combination with in-depth courses is at the core of the program. Our partners, network, and extended research networks of staff members will provide you with ample opportunities for organizing the ethnographic research required for your master's thesis.
Anthropology
By focusing on the social dimension, anthropology, more so than any other discipline, intends to uncover the hidden transcripts and power dynamics that lie beneath the surface of many development issues. Knowledge acquired mainly through fieldwork and participant observation enhances our understanding of the rich diversity of knowledge systems, worldviews, and modes of living from within. Anthropologists avoid approaching a given culture in light of their own standards of knowledge, truth, values, or technological development.
Development
Development is only sustainable when it fully acknowledges the culture-specific ways in which societies or networks deal with what are often increasingly scarce life resources. Most often, communities view change or development as desirable only when it meaningfully coalesces with the cultural values that inspire their heritages of knowledge, religion and art, networks of communication, deliberation, and decision-making, or notions of responsibility, parenthood, nutrition, and health. However, rather than view this as an obstacle, it should be understood as the way for any lasting and meaningful change for development to take root. Development is, for that matter, always mediated by a community's common-sense knowledge and pragmatic motives, along with how its members think about and practice kinship, gender, identity, ethics, politics, justice, and so on.
Curriculum
Introductory Courses
- Introduction to Anthropology in a Decolonizing World
- Power, Politics and Cultures of Late Capitalism in Anthropological Perspectives
- Anthropology of Religion
- Culture, Migration, and Mobility
- Posthuman Anthropology
Basic Courses
- Inequality, Development, and Change in Anthropological Perspective
- Anthropology and the Anthropocene
- Race, Ethnicity, and the Postcolonial Condition
Research
- Ethnographic Fieldwork
Master's Thesis
- Research, Ethnography, and Development
- From the Field to the Master's Thesis: Writing Up Seminar
- Master's Thesis
Ideal Students
Student Profile
You are an ambitious, and enthusiastically dedicated applicant with an interest in policy, education, consultancy, or research in the international and/or intercultural development context. You think out of the box and your personal objective is to obtain an interdisciplinary critical academic understanding of development policies and processes, both in North and South.
Admissions
Program delivery
The courses are fully taught in English.
Program Outcome
- Credits: 60 ECTS
- Degree Type: Advanced Master
- Specifications: Master of Science.
Program Tuition Fee
Why study at KU Leuven
What sets us apart as a university?
A highly-ranked university
KU Leuven is among the best 100 universities in the world according to both Times Higher Education World Rankings and QS World University Rankings. All of KU Leuven’s disciplines proudly belong to the top 100 of their field.
Research-based education
Education at KU Leuven is research-based, which means students will learn from the same professors who are performing the ground-breaking research you read about in the press. New insights are instantly integrated into classes and students are encouraged to perform their research. In our FabLab, students can use several high-tech machines to create whatever they want – all free of charge.
Affordable tuition fees
Higher education is highly valued in Belgium and therefore subsidised by the government. This allows KU Leuven to keep tuition fees relatively low, which gives you a price/quality ratio very few top-100 universities can match. We take pride in keeping our programs as accessible as possible to allow the brightest students from around the globe to join our courses.
International student life with respect for diversity
According to Times Higher Education, KU Leuven is in the top 50 of most international universities worldwide with staff and students from over 150 different nationalities. For all our international students, the Pangaea student center is their home away from home. Our university also strives for diversity and inclusion and wants to work together on a pact for more respect.
Program Leaders
Scholarships and Funding
Several scholarship options are available. Please visit the university website for more information.
Info Sessions
KU Leuven combines the best of both worlds by hosting both online and live info sessions. You choose how, where and when to get your information in your search for the right program
Rankings
KU Leuven is among the best 100 universities in the world according to both Times Higher Education World Rankings and QS World University Rankings. KU Leuven’s disciplines proudly belong to the top 100 of their field. Furthermore, KU Leuven was ranked by Reuters as the most innovative university in Europe in 2016.
Accreditations
Gallery
Career Opportunities
Holders of a CADES degree have a scientific, critical, reflective, and culture-sensitive understanding of development. They are able to relate their field-specific knowledge to the ongoing evolution of development debates, and in organizations that defend, promote, or assess collective and cultural interests, expectations, and movements.
Graduates possess the tools to understand development from the viewpoint of local realities and epistemologies and can relate these to anthropological theories and paradigms.
CADES offers students a large international and interdisciplinary background that allows them to approach and interact with development issues from an anthropological perspective. Graduates may obtain access to a variety of jobs in NGOs, international organizations, development cooperation, education, social and medical services, advisory organizations, international relations, enterprises, and research.