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The Department of Anthropology at the University of Hawai'i
at Mānoa (UHM) has a long-standing graduate program that
trains students in various aspects of anthropology, focusing
especially on Asia and the Pacific region. Specific faculty
research interests lie in Hawai'i, Samoa, Tahiti, Micronesia,
China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan and Thailand.
 Graduate
studies in anthropology at UHM are oriented toward training
individuals to become well-rounded scholars and teachers,
as well as competent researchers and/or practitioners in one
or more sub-fields of anthropology. The department's program
emphasizes field research. In any given year, there are students
engaged in projects such as excavating an ancient religious
temple in Tahiti, recording ritual life in rural Java, or
analyzing the social system of a Japanese factory.
Students in Hawai'i are in an ideal situation for participation
in the exciting world of the Pacific and Asia people, in the
past, present and future. Many of our students come from these
locations, and Hawai'i itself is unique in its ethnic diversity.
Given the considerable U.S.-Japan interaction in Hawai'i,
students find anthropology useful regardless of their career
goals, as they learn the principles of cultural identity,
construction and interaction.
Students may choose to specialize in one of the sub-disciplines
listed below:
In Archaeology, the department has a major commitment
to the study of ancient Hawai'i, the Pacific, and Southeast
Asia. Each year the department offers summer archaeology
field schools in Hawai'i, and occasionally elsewhere in
the Pacific (e.g. Fiji), that provide students with an opportunity
to learn the profession first hand. The archaeology program
also participates in the fields of Cultural Resource Management
and Historic Preservation through courses and placement
of students in these developing careers.
Cultural Anthropology is the branch of the discipline
concerned with the study of contemporary peoples (ethnography)
and the comparison of cultures, which aims at arriving at
general understandings of the human condition (ethnology).
Cultural anthropologists in the department have done research
in China, Japan, Southeast Asia and Oceania. No orthodoxy
defines the department and students are encouraged to develop
their own theoretical specializations.
Discursive Practices deal with the processes by
which cultural meanings are produced and understood. This
approach offers a distinctive perspective on linguistic
anthropology as well as cultural anthropology as a whole.
It subsumes, but extends well beyond, the traditional field
of linguistic anthropology and is central to contemporary
cultural anthropology, especially its concern with ethnographic
methods. The key objective of a discursive practice approach
is to develop theories and techniques relevant to the analysis
of meaningful behavior in actual situations. Discursively
oriented anthropology emphasizes linguistic, semantic, and
interacting aspects of culture as well as extra-linguistic
discourse modalities. It treats the full range of social
forms and practices in terms of how they are discursively
produced and understood.
Physical Anthropology is the study of the human
condition from a biological perspective. It includes the
study of human evolution from its early pre-hominid beginnings;
the study of physical variations in contemporary, historic,
and prehistoric human populations; and the study of primates.
Medical Anthropology is the study on how people
conceptualize and deal with illness and wellness. The department
has strong ties with the School of Medicine, the School
of Nursing and the Department of Public Health Sciences
and Epidemiology.
Ecological Anthropology is focused on human interactions
with tropical forest environments, both in Hawai'i and in
Southeast Asia. The specialization in ecological anthropology
includes a concentration in spiritual ecology.
 Located
on the third floor of the Social Sciences Building, close
to the center of campus, the department has numerous amenities
to aid students in their research. Graduate students have
a lounge and offices, in addition to access to several computer
rooms. A library is available with rare books, dissertations
and research materials.
 The
Archaeology Labs, Paleoecology Lab, and most archaeology faculty
offices are located on the first and second floors in Dean
Hall, 2450 Campus Road. The Hamilton Library has a comprehensive
Hawaiian Pacific Collection.
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