People’s embededness in social relations and cultural frameworks lie at the heart of social anthropology. Whereas in the past, social anthropolgy set out to study supposedly simple social organisations in small-scale societies that were thought to exist outside and independently of the industrialized West, the focus nowaday shifted towards an inquiry of globalisation and related migratory processes. These developments led to a new emphasis on culural differences and interconnections wihin the West as well as its relation to other regions in the world.

Contemporary social anthropolgy is dedicated to a critical appraisal of such processes and to the development of solution-oriented approaches. Consequently, Europe provides a field of activity for social anthropology. Comparative case studies, philological-historical analysis and empirical data collections constitute indispensable methods necessary for conducting successful and valuable research in social anthropology. Moreover, multi-disciplinary research activities and international cooperation are essential to the accomplishment of our research objectives.