The Department of Ethnology and Anthropology was established in 2003. It concentrates on cultural anthropology, but it offers courses in other subfields as well. Faculty research interests span a wide range of topics including the questions of the everyday and affective spaces, language and identity, heritage sites and cultural landscapes, cultural memory, pilgrimage and tourism, popular culture and visual culture, performance and performativity, migrant community formations, race and ethnicity and public health issues.
The Departments promotes inter-departmental collaboration, as well as multiple and interdisciplinary approaches. It has established partnership with various universities around the world including Karl-Franzens University in Graz (Austria), University Ca’Foscari from Venice and University of Padua (Italy), University of Cork (Ireland), Universities of Ioannina and Thessalonica (Greece), University of Bratislava (Slovakia), University of Istanbul (Turkey) and Florida Gulf Coast University (USA). Our faculty has spent time visiting and doing research at universities in Ljubljana, Graz, Padua, Venice, Jerusalem, Malta, Benares (India), Philadelphia, Cork, Ioannina, Auckland and Melbourne. We have hosted international faculty and students from various parts of the world. In short, our Department is a vibrant and diverse community of scholars and students.
The undergraduate and graduate study programme in Ethnology and Anthropology offers students the opportunity to explore the complexities of human culture and society. Ethnographic fieldwork is one of the major components of our study programme and therefore we especially highlight the need to conduct research during undergraduate and graduate study of ethnology and anthropology. Furthermore, in our study programmes we emphasize the need for students to be engaged in local communities through trainships in various institutions (National parks, museums, heritage centers, educational institutions, government and non-government organizations, etc.). We encourage our students to reflect on their findings, both theoretically and methodologically, and to present the results of their research on student conferences, public events and workshops. Upon completion of their studies, students are able to critically reflect on the cultural diversity of our globalized world, its interconnectedness, as well as on the complexities of cultural phenomena. The undergraduate and graduate study programme of ethnology and anthropology at the University of Zadar offers wide range of topics which are problematized in diverse courses.