The Best Survival Strategy: Belonging

Why did Homo sapiens survive while other human species disappeared? This article argues that the answer lies not primarily in superior physical strength or intelligence but in humanity’s unique capacity to construct institutions of belonging. Human existence and survival are fundamentally relational: being is belonging. The paper develops an ontology of belonging based on three interconnected strata of reality: the material, the biological, and the human. While biological organisms adapt through evolution, human societies adapt through institutions understood as technologies of belonging that sustain cooperation in a non-ergodic and uncertain world. Human history is interpreted as a succession of attempts to construct larger and more stable communities of belonging, although this process is neither linear nor irreversible. Belonging is always imperfect and remains continuously exposed to fragmentation, exclusion, and institutional decline. The article further argues that ontological assumptions shape institutional imagination and therefore influence institutional futures. The ontology of belonging provides an alternative to individualistic and balance-of-power ontologies and may contribute to the development of institutions capable of sustaining wider and more inclusive forms of belonging in the twenty-first century.