Graduate Anthropology Program

Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology

The Ph.D. program is designed to offer students a series of courses in anthropology that will be of relevance and use to their present or future occupations in a developing nation. It is hoped that future Ph.D. students coming out of this program will want to do career research in the anthropology of development or ecological anthropology, and that all will strongly desire to make continuing professional contributions to Philippine anthropology.

Objectives of the Program

The Ph.D. program aims to:

• offer tutorial courses to students in order to strengthen their mastery of the theoretical underpinnings and practical applications of anthropology
• strengthen the student’s capacity to carry out independent fieldwork-based/ethnographic research
• contribute to sharpening the theoretical dimensions of anthropology as seen from the prism of different cultures

Requirements

• The student is required to engage in ethnographic fieldwork throughout one year on a problem-area to be worked out with an advisor, and on the basis of data obtained in conjunction with appropriate anthropological literature available at USC, write a Ph.D. dissertation following the USC format. Courses at the M.A. level will have oriented the student toward research on problems of development and/or ecology.



• Should the problem-area selected be of such a nature that the student needs substantial further preparation in addition to that already obtained in Masters-level courses, the student and the advisor will plan for a limited number of tutorial reading courses (at 3 units each). These will be selected from among the currently available courses, or created anew, to meet the needs of each individual student in preparing his/her Ph.D. proposal, and the advisor or whoever is assigned as tutor to each course will aid the student to seek out references on these subjects. The average number of Ph.D. tutorial courses to be taken will likely amount to twelve (12) units.


For example, should the student want to do research on the lives of Muslim women who have migrated to Cebu City, and the coursework has not adequately prepared her for this, she may need to take reading tutorial courses in the following subjects: The anthropology of Islam, Muslim societies and cultures of the Philippines, the anthropology of women, and the anthropology of urbanization and migration.

The student, if he/she wishes, may enroll in Education 201 Thesis Proposal, but will have to work closely not only with the instructor but also with the dissertation advisor to develop any proposal required for the dissertation.


• A research proposal written by the student under the advisor’s guidance, must be heard and accepted by a Ph.D. Dissertation Panel chosen by the student and composed of three Ph.D.-holders (possibly multidisciplinary and to include guest professors) and the advisor before fieldwork begins. The eventual dissertation, however, may be expected to deviate somewhat from the proposal, depending on the opportunities or limitations encountered at the field site in the course of actual fieldwork. The proposal is required to ensure the scientific orientation and acceptability of the endeavor. This proposal hearing may be preceded by a “speculation conference,” as at the Master’s Level.



• At the Ph.D. level, the student will be expected to pay tuition fees equivalent to 3 units per lecture course or seminar/tutorial-reading course in each of the following semesters:
  • The one or two semesters devoted to reading-tutorial and/or thesis proposal courses in preparation for the proposal writing
  • The semester devoted to proposal writing, revision, and hearing
  • A 3-unit residence for each semester taken up by field work
  • Any semesters after the field research year devoted to dissertation writing, revision, and defense and involving the guidance of the dissertation advisor.
  
  In each of these semesters, the Ph.D. candidate will thus enroll in 9 units of “Reading Tutorial” or “Dissertation Counseling.” The residency period subsequent to the acceptance of the Ph.D. proposal is five years only, at which time a Ph.D. dissertation must have been successfully defended and bound copies duly submitted, or the student is disqualified from further attempts to earn a Ph.D in Anthropology at USC.
  
  Whenever possible, in the short term, external advisors and examiners with Ph.Ds in anthropology will be invited from other universities to participate in students’ Ph.D programs. Also, the student may be allowed to enroll in Ph.D courses in other universities and to transfer the credits to the University of San Carlos.

Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology Prospectus