Bøger af Kaori Kawai

As the sequel to Groups: The Evolution of Human Sociality (2013), this book has broadened the discussion to examine the actions of people, apes, and monkeys in terms of 'what they do' by forming groups or in-groups. In Institutions, the shared processes and practices that facilitate coexistence in groups are examined from an evolutionary historical perspective. Contributors include researchers from the field of anthropology, including sociological primatology, ecological anthropology, and sociocultural anthropology. The chapters examine institutions from a diverse range of perspectives, including: encountering death, children's games, conflict and peace, cattle rustling, and mathematical proofs. In terms of non-human primates, this study focuses on 'pre-institutional' phenomena, such as relations established through 'call and response' patterns and food sharing, and it forms arguments as to whether the concept of institutions can be applied to these settings. As the chapters in this volume establish, the argument that language is a prerequisite for the establishment of institutions has indeed been surpassed.

Groups: The Evolution of Human Sociality is the product of a collaborative project based at the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Researchers primarily involved in three fields--primate sociology and ecology, ecological anthropology, and socio-cultural anthropology--came together to discuss the shape and variations of groups as sympatric entities, and the evolutionary historical foundations that have led to the orientation of groups in present-day human society. To that end, the book turns to non-human primates for comparative purposes to consider the nature of the evolutionary historical foundations of sociality. In place of the past objective of "reconstructing" the ecology and society of early humans, the book's contributions instead re-identify the creation and evolution of that which is social and challenge the prevailing theory of groups in socio-cultural anthropology. Specialists on research into human beings and those studying non-human primates develop the debate about groups in the context of their own areas of expertise, at times in ways that extend beyond the boundaries of their fields.