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Max-Planck-Institut für ethnologische Forschung
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
WORKSHOP
“The Cognitive Specialisations of Nomadic Pastoralism”
29 – 30 October, 2009
Organiser:
Venue:
Kirill Istomin
MPI for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale, Germany
Background
One of the recurrent themes in ethnographies of various peoples over roughly the last
half century is the specific cognitive skills that underlie particular cultures and ways of
life. We consider these reports as proving the existence of what we call cognitive
specialisations - specific cognitive mechanisms or processes shared by the
representatives of a certain cultural, social, or professional group and designed to
solve specific cognitive tasks encountered by them due to the peculiarities of this
group’s activities, culture, or way of life. Understanding cognitive specialisations could
greatly enrich the anthropological theory of human action and the enculturation
process. It could also have an impact on cognitive theory and, therefore, be fruitful for
the discipline of cognitive psychology. Thus, we suggest that a joint effort of
anthropologists and cognitive scientists in such research should be beneficial for both
these disciplines.
Cognitive Specialisations of Nomadic Pastoralists
In our workshop, we propose a specific focus on cognitive specialisations among
members of nomadic pastoral societies. The reason for this focus is that the special
conditions, in which these people find themselves due to their nomadic way of life and
peculiarities of their economy, confront them routinely with specific cognitive tasks,
which might well demand a degree of cognitive specialisation. Two types of such tasks
are intuitively evident:
1. The nomadic way of life and the necessity to allocate adequate pasturing
resources for animals would demand the ability to memorise and navigate
through large expanses of territory.
2. Maintaining control over the herds in the course of pasturing and monitoring
their conditions and needs would demand the ability to register, decipher, and,
to some degree, predict animal behaviour. This ability could be based on a
“Theory of Animal Mind” analogous to TOM, on which the human ability to
register, decipher, and predict behaviour of other humans is supposedly based.
The existence of other cognitive specialisations of nomadic pastoralists can also be
supposed. This makes the nomadic pastoralists a promising object of the joint study on
the topic.
MPI for Social Anthropology, March 2009
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Themes of the Workshop
The expected contributions from social anthropologists to the general topic of the workshop
could include accounts of:
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Specific cognitive capacities observable among nomadic pastoralists, which are
likely to be the results of the cognitive specialisation
Ways in which these capacities exert influence and are used in every-day practice
Ways in which these capacities are acquired, transferred in the process of
enculturation, and, maybe, lost
Ways in which these capacities are distributed in nomadic pastoralist societies
as well as these capacities relations to social status and role
We expect that the contributions from cognitive scientists could include theoretical and
empirical insights into:
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The process of cognitive specialisation in general
Possible cognitive mechanisms behind the pastoral nomadic cognitive
specialisations. We are particularly interested in discussing the varying mechanisms
of the way-finding ability and the possibility of the “Theory of Animal Mind” as a
model for the ability to decipher and predict animal behaviour.
The methods by which these cognitive specialisations could be studied in the field
The workshop will consist of several sessions of presentations as well as one or two round
tables. During the round tables, we would like to inspire discussions on little explored but, in
our opinion, perspective topics such as animal mindreading.
Speakers will be invited by the organiser.
Contact:
Kirill Istomin, email: [email protected]
MPI for Social Anthropology, March 2009
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