Introduction
UIC Anthropology is a research focused department with faculty actively engaged in fieldwork, writing, and mentoring across several primary areas of thematic strength across the globe.
Research Themes
Urbanism, Cities, and Inequality
The anthropology and archaeology of urban spaces are defining strengths of the department and a natural anchor for our identity, given Chicago’s status as a global city and UIC’s institutional mission.
Topical specializations include:
- Urban cultures and globalization
- Dynamics of ancient cities and settlements
- Infrastructure, housing, and spatial inequality
- Migration and ethnic communities
- Urban health and public health systems
- Activism, governance, and inequality
- Religion and faith
Archaeology of Complex Societies, Heritage, and Museum Studies
UIC has a distinct and nationally competitive strength in archaeology, supported by global faculty research project, and the long-standing infrastructure and institutional partnership with the Field Museum of Chicago.
Topical specializations include:
- Sociopolitical complexity in non-state societies
- Ancient states and empires (e.g., Inca, Angkor)
- Technology and raft production (ceramics, metallurgy)
- Museum, curatorial and heritage studies
- Bioarchaeology and ancient disease
Mobilities, Environment, and Landscape
Our department engages in dynamic, multi-scalar research focused on understanding how people – past and present – move and interact dynamically with each other and their ultimate impact on the earth.
Topical specializations include:
- Borders, migration and diasporas
- Transnational identities
- Roads, rest and networks
- Foodways, production and diet
- Global labor and capital flows
Health, Medicine, and the Body
This area bridges anthropology’s humanistic and scientific approaches and is one of the department’s most interdisciplinary and externally connected areas of strength linking us directly to Chicago’s extensive medical, public health, and biomedical research ecosystem.
Topical specializations include:
- Public health and healthcare systems
- Cultural understandings of illness and healing
- Health disparities and structural inequality
- Intersections of race, gender, and health
- Human Osteology
- Oral health and community-based health studies