Human Nature and Social Life

The book explores how humans are distinct social beings whose relations nevertheless extend into nonhuman spheres in various ways.

Human Nature and Social Life will be of interest to anyone interested in social theory. Providing an updated ethnographic alternative to philosophical and evolutionary theories about human nature and sociality, it argues that humans and human sociality are distinct, and demonstrates how human relations nevertheless extend into more-than-human spheres.What distinguishes humans from nonhuman 'others'? And how do these distinctions shape human sociality and the ways that humans relate to their others? Human Nature and Social Life brings together a collection of articles by prominent anthropologists to address these questions. The articles show how the fundamentally social nature of humans results in an extension of sociality to virtual, semiotic-material and nonhuman spheres, with humans therefore becoming part of 'extended socialities'. However, as the book's contributors demonstrate, human distinctness significantly bears upon these extended socialities, and the manner in which humans partake in them. Taking an ethnographic approach to its subject, this book demonstrates the continued value of studying the specificities of the human condition, and sets itself as a counterweight to current refutations of human exceptionalism.