MATE workshop on Human Universals or Commonalities

In the framework of European project MATE past December, 21 local students of the University of Alicante were trained in the Human Universals or Commonalities concept to further become MATE facilitators. 

Donald E. Brown, American professor of anthropology, in his book “Human Universals” (1991), explains that human universals or commonalities "comprise those features of culture, society, language, behaviour, and psyche for which there are no known exception". In other words, they are attributes that characterise us all or which we have adopted collectively during human evolution and progress.

The project consortium concluded on 30 Human Universals or Commonalities out of a compilation published in the appendix of “The Blank Slate” by Steven Pinker (2002). The selected Human Universals or Commonalities were divided into five conventional realms or categories, namely Culture, Society, Language, Behaviour, and Mind (or Psyche, in the words of Brown), based on the aforementioned definition by Brown. 

For the aforementioned training we picked up 5 human universals namely: Gender Statuses, Gestures, Cooperation/Coalitions, Facial Expressions & Rituals. Due to the current pandemic the modality was on-line, however thanks to the dynamisms of the trainer and a variety if Ice-breaking activities the students were actively engaged and entertained.