#21 BIG Podcast – “Non-Human Borders?”

featuring Ammie Kalan, Assistant Professor at the University of Victoria and field-based Primatologist

As we know, human history has led to the construction of border systems between different political entities. Human groups have sought to differentiate themselves spatially by boundaries, delimitations, legal conventions, border guards, they have also formed alliances and buffer zones. But there are other types of borders, borders that exist in the non-human world. Types of borders that the study of ethology in general reveals to us, and also primatology. We discuss about these non-human borders and bordering phenomena, notably complex and fascinating Chimpanzees territoriality, with Ammie Kalan. Professor Kalan is interested in behavioural flexibility in wild great apes, and what this can tell us about “hominin” evolution using a comparative perspective.

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube!

Ammie Kalan is an Assistant Professor and PI of the GAB Lab in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Victoria in BC, Canada. Her research interest lies in the evolutionary origins and socio-ecological drivers of primate behavioural flexibility and diversity. She uses a variety of interdisciplinary methods in the field to study wild populations.