Welcome to the home pages of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Helsinki

The basic principles of human existence everywhere include diversity of life and cultural difference. Anthropology is the systematic, comparative study of these differences.

Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Helsinki is one of seven disciplines within the Department of Social Research, Faculty of Social Sciences. Its lecturers, researchers and administrative staff are to be found in the nineteenth-century quadrangle complex, Topelia, Unioninkatu 38 E – centrally located in downtown Helsinki and close to other prominent city campus buildings including the Main Building, Porthania, the City Centre Campus Libraries, the Social Sciences Faculty Building and the Swedish School of Social Science. Classes are held in various venues nearby.

Lecturers and researchers may be contacted directly by phone and email, and lecturers also have weekly office hours which are open for students seeking advice (see the personnel pages for schedules and contact times). Incoming students from abroad should schedule a session with an appropriate staff member at the earliest opportunity to discuss their study programmes; courses only available in Finnish may be completed by Faculty Examination (based on agreed reading material and personal study).