Volker Sommer is Emeritus Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at UCL. He will be speaking in the Daryll Forde Seminar Room, on Oct 15, 6:30pm. Please come early before doors close! To join on ZOOM ID 384 186 2174 passcode Wawilak
Volker explores the evolution of social behaviour through field-studies of primates in Asia and Africa. Volker Sommer belongs to the Ape Specialist Groups of the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) and is on the scientific board of the GBS (Giordano-Bruno-Foundation), a German-based think-tank promoting secularism and evolutionary humanism.
Abstract: People follow regionally divergent lifestyles in terms of technology, communication, manners or values. Only recently, however, were similar group-typical variations discovered in non-human animals. In particular, communities of monkeys and apes differ in diet and tool use, but also in what is socially acceptable. These dynamics seem to lead to a quasi-religious internal morality and identity. Being “cultured” therefore creates belonging (entitativity) and otherness (alterity). In chimpanzees, such constructions of “we” versus “they” stir up lethal intergroup violence. Interactions between human groups – including the opportunities and challenges of multiculturalism – might likewise be better understood from cross-species perspectives.