Our MA Migration and Diaspora Studies is a broad-based degree for students who want to receive research training in migration and diaspora, as well as humanitarian and refugee studies, including a relevant language as part of the specialisation. The degree prepares you to proceed to advanced postgraduate research or to work as practitioners in fields related to migration, refugees and humanitarian relief.

The MA in Migration and Diaspora Studies is a highly interdisciplinary program, taught from a Global South perspective and uniquely committed to anthropology and other disciplines' accountability towards the subjects they study.

The MA programme is engaged and practice oriented and offers the possibility of creative assignments along with conventional assessment forms. It is enthused by the belief that knowledge and practice produced by diaspora and migrants' grassroots organisations, activists, practitioners and artists should be intertwined with academic knowledge, and validated as part of a real decolonising effort.

Students enrolled in the MA programme have the unique chance to carry out internships while studying through the module From Theory to Practice and Back: Work-placements in Migration Research. The internships aim to bridge theory and practice in the fields of migration, diaspora and humanitarian practice.

The course is available exclusively to students enrolled in the MA Migration and Diaspora Studies. The course is organised in the form of internships and independent study projects, along with some class seminars in collaboration with the organisations, with whom we partner. Students have the opportunity to work with a broad range of organisations operating in areas as varied as migrants' support and refugees’ legal protection, activist and political campaigns and networks, as well as galleries and art collectives promoting diaspora and BAME cultures, identities, and arts. You may also be interested in this degree if you come from other disciplines, such as Law or Politics, and now wish to incorporate an anthropological perspective on issues of migration and diaspora.

Students from SOAS’ Department of Anthropology and Sociology develop an in-depth understanding of the world. Employers value our graduates’ cultural awareness and global perspective, as well as their skills in analysis, data interpretation and problem-solving.

Recent Department of Anthropology and Sociology graduates have been hired by:

• Allen & Overy
• BBC
• British Council
• Deloitte
• Hackney Migrant Centre
• IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development)
• IOM- UN Migration
• Media 52
• New York Times
• Social Mobility Foundation
• The Week
• UNICEF
• United Nations Development Programme
• World Bank Group