The Anthropology of Cognitive Ecologies at the Margins: Understanding How Peripheral Worlds Produce Distinct Forms of Intelligence
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.64137/31079385/IJMHSS-V2I3P101Keywords:
Anthropology of Cognition, Cognitive Ecologies, Marginality, Distributed Intelligence, Uncertainty, Adaptation, Relational Ontologies, Informal Urbanism, Ecological Anthropology, ComplexityAbstract
This study examines how environments of social, economic, and spatial marginality shape distinctive forms of cognition and modes of intelligent action. While anthropological research has long explored knowledge, adaptation, and learning in diverse contexts, limited attention has been given to the ways in which peripheral settings characterised by precarity, instability, and irregular access to institutional infrastructures generate specific cognitive ecologies. These environments often demand improvisation, distributed problem-solving, flexible collaboration, and heightened sensitivity to uncertainty. Based on theories of distributed cognition, ecological anthropology, relational ontologies and complexity, this work investigates how intelligence arises through complex interactions among individuals, collectives, material conditions, and local cosmologies. It is not explicitly focused on informal urban settlements, borderland communities or mobile, displaced populations, yet it highlights everyday practices grounded in these groups. By analysing how people think, decide, and innovate under conditions of constraint, the research seeks to broaden anthropological understandings of cognition and contribute to a more inclusive account of human intelligence across diverse lifeworlds.
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