121-067 Cooperation and Conflict

Note

Credit Points

HECS Band

Coordinator

Semester

Subject Description

Evolutionary ecology explores functional relationships between behaviour and context in order to understand why people in different times and places act as they do. The emphasis in this subject is on variation in behaviour, both within and between societies. The subject will introduce students to the logic of evolutionary ecology and to the ways it contributes to a broader understanding of human behaviour. Through the use of ethnographic examples students should become familiar with: the application of evolutionary ecology to understanding patterns of resource procurement, the organisation of access to material and social resources, life history strategies and reproductive behaviour, gender roles, formation and maintenance of groups for production and consumption, alliance formation and the emergence of social complexity.