Culture, Cooperation and Child Development Research Group
Our research group studies the role of culture in the evolution of human cooperation, particularly through the lens of developmental systems and processes. We use a broad range of methods in our investigation, but field research among the peoples of the Congo Basin has been central to our work.
The Congo Basin is home to the BaYaka, who are tropical forest specialists and one of the largest autonomous forager – or hunter-gatherer – populations on Earth. Today, BaYaka live via a variety of means that draw on their knowledge of the forest and its social, spiritual and economic resources. BaYaka society is egalitarian, individual autonomy is highly valued, and a distinctly communal view of resources is maintained by strong sharing norms. These facets of society structure people’s individual experiences within BaYaka communities and in relation to neighboring farming and fishing people, who have different social structures, values, and norms. Working with the BaYaka and these other groups across multiple villages in this region offers us the opportunity to use informed comparison as a methodology in our research.
By integrating comparative field work, qualitative and quantitative data collection, and multi-level statistical modeling we can unpack how individual experiences in different contexts —especially during childhood—lead to different outcomes, and by inference, uncover the processes and pathways through which culture shapes cooperative behavior and well-being within and between groups. On a practical level, we aim for our research to aid in bridging knowledge systems to open new opportunities for the BaYaka and others. Theoretically, we aim to link individual, culturally-informed behavior across the lifespan to cultural evolution and cooperation at the community and population level.
Some of our current research topics include:
- cultural evolutionary and developmental perspectives on globalization and market integration among subsistence communities;
- cultural transmission and cognitive development of common pool resource management strategies;
- hunter epistemology, ecological knowledge, and cooperation;
- the role of residential mobility in family systems and its links to cultural transmission;
- inter-group cooperation, especially between hunter-gatherers and others.
We are also open to hearing from potential PhD students or post-doctoral researchers with interest or experience in empirical research on culture, cooperation, childhood, human lifespan development, family systems, and/or hunter-gatherer studies, especially from cultural evolutionary, evolutionary, cross-cultural or multidisciplinary perspectives.
Potential PhD students who have a Masters Degree can apply through the International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS): the Leipzig School of Human Origins or contact us directly.
Potential postdocs should contact the lab initially and are encouraged to apply for external funding. Please contact Dr. Boyette with any questions.
Members
Adam H. Boyette (Senior Scientist; Team leader)
Adam is trained as an evolutionary cultural anthropologist with specializations in cultural learning and evolution, the anthropology of childhood, and hunter-gatherer studies. His major research topics have included diversity in social learning/teaching behavior across childhood, play, biocultural perspectives on fatherhood and family systems, cultural variation in learning systems, and the cultural evolutionary significance of individual autonomy. He has worked with Congo Basin peoples since 2008, in the Central African Republic until 2012 and subsequently in the Republic of the Congo.
Martin Kocsis (PhD Student)
In my early research, I investigated patterns of primate social organization through a comparative approach, working with groups of great apes, Old and New World monkeys. My focus was on understanding the evolution of human cognition, sociality, and language, and how these may have laid the groundwork for the moral communities emerging later in our lineage. In subsequent works, I considered developmental aspects of these and have conducted fieldwork with semi-nomadic mountain shepherds in Central Asia. Currently, I am working with rainforest hunter-gatherers (the BaYaka) in the Western Congo Basin, where my main focus is on local models of ecology, human-animal relations, and the spirit world. The central question is how these local ontologies and the ritual choreography surrounding the hunt foster cooperation within and between groups, distributing actions, intentions, and responsibilities across people in ways that sustain collective functioning without authoritative structures or political hierarchies. I am further interested in how these beliefs and practices around production are integrated into the broader moral and cosmological framework of the Yaka lifeway
Vidrige Kandza (former PhD student)
Vidrige is a researcher at the Institut National de Rechereche en Sciences Sociales et Humains (INRSSH) in Brazzaville, Congo, and president of the Association des Jeunes pour l'Education à Sauvegarde des Eléphants du Congo (AJESEC). He has more than ten years’ field work experience in the tropical forests of the northern Republic of Congo, including habituating gorillas, conducting systematic surveys among national park employees, and studying ethnobotany and resource use among the BaYaka. For his PhD, supervised by Dr. Boyette, Vidrige studied the dynamics of inter-ethnic cooperation in for-hire shotgun hunting between BaYaka hunters and non-BaYaka gun owners. He defended his thesis in 2024.
Haneul Jang (former Postdoctoral Researcher)
Haneul is currently a Research Scientist at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD). She earned her PhD in 2020 from the Department of Primatology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. She completed her first postdoctoral appointment with Dr. Adam Boyette in the Department of Human Behavior, Ecology, and Culture at MPI-EVA, where she worked until 2023. From 2024 to 2025, she was a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse. Her research focuses on understanding the socio-ecological forces that shape human cooperation, particularly from the perspective of motherhood. She investigates cooperative foraging and childcare practices among BaYaka foragers in the Republic of the Congo, integrating methods and theory from behavioral ecology, cultural evolution, and evolutionary anthropology. Her work bridges insights from both the biological and social sciences. Since 2015, she has worked closely with BaYaka foragers living in the rainforests of the Republic of the Congo.