Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology

The Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology (Max-Planck-Institut für ethnologische Forschung) is located in Halle), Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It was founded in 1999, and moved into new buildings 2001. It is one of 80 institutes in the Max Planck Society.

The institute currently consists of three departments. Likewise, the MPISA co-manages the Center for Anthropological Studies on Central Asia with the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Zurich.

Law and Anthropology

The Department of Law and Anthropology was established in 2012 to focus on the effects of societies and cultures towards law and politics and vice-versa. This department also carefully looks how scholars of this specific discipline can and should take responsibility for implications surrounding the interplay of these societal factors.

Resilience and Transformation in Eurasia

The Department of Resilience and Transformation in Eurasia is concerned with the interaction of economics, politics and anthropology within Eurasia. Research sub-groups are focusing and have done studies on kinship, historical anthropology, economic anthropology, urban anthropology, culture and socialism, and citizenship.

Integration and Conflict

The Department of Integration and Conflict focuses on social systems particularly based on identification and differentiation among groups. The department looks into the holistic elements that build ethnic identity through kinship, friendship, language, history, religion, and how ethnicity plays a role across social systems at individual and supra-individual levels.